On The Old Lady's Floor

I had the little house to myself, and sunshine almost every day. And when it wasn't sunny, there was momentous thunderclaps and pouring rain.

"Here it comes," I said to the old lady who lives across the street, the one with the antlers in her garage. She didn't understand English but she knew what I meant, get ready for a downpour.
People afterwards asked me what I did all the time. I had two books, which I'd finished quite early on into my stay. One was called the 10th Commandment and was a well written but fairly obscure detective novel. The other was the New Testament, a little red Gideons Bible. From the scrawlings on the inside cover I surmised I'd had it since primary school.

In answer to society's question of 'how can one possibly survive without television, books, conversation, coffee, rich food and computers without going stir crazy, I mean what do you do all day?' I answer; 'I read the Bible a Christian, I meditate as a Buddhist, I practice yoga a Hindu, as a Muslim I submit entirely to God, as a Zennist I do a million things and as a Taoist I do them all without doing anything.'

And I did not avoid going 'stir crazy' but embraced it. When the weight of thoughts became heavy as
I wandered down a country road in the sun I told myself 'never grow up', 'be always like a child' and went skipping down the hillside laughing and shouting. And if anyone had seen me over the next four hours they would have said, 'there goes a madman.'

I dredged up the filthiest sexual desires and shouted them down the concrete aqueduct that crossed under the road. I gave the women in love with me what they want and more, fell writhing on the earth.

And as I came to the electrical substation, a large and deserted building nestled in its spider web of iron strands, I realised something profound: "It's all True."

There is nothing untrue under the sun, or in the mind, or on the lips.

Its all True in all the towering contradiction, the clash of ideas and war of beliefs being nothing but the clash of Truth on Truth. No one True thing cancelling out another. And as I wandered down the riverbank I saw how even the assertion, the belief, that nothing is real, that everything illusion, even that is the most profound and actual Truth, standing uncompromisable with no need for argument or justification.

And so ended Doubt. Never after that moment was there any need to wallow in confusion, to ask 'am I doing the right thing?', 'do I believe right?', 'will I be painted as a fool?' And I realised how Jesus and Buddha, Krishna, Meister Eckhart, Gandhi and Martin Luther King had all ended Doubt, and had experienced non-stop attempts on their life. Because the one thing that society, from the lowliest tenement dweller to the highest magnate, is terrified of is pure unadulterated Truth.

And as I came further and further down the river where the trees opened up to reveal glistening and receptive water reflecting lovingly the sky, I realised the absurdities that afflicted even my closest friends. That even the activist movement that I am a part of, for all our claims to connection on a higher moral or spiritual plane, to all our assertions that we have Awoken and have the answers, are still the victims of the most profound self-deception.

'Let us sit around in circles trying to agree on everything under the sun, and then when we do finally agree completely fail to do anything with it. Let us spend all our time bickering and opposing each other, and treat our power struggles as more important than the state of the world, even while preaching the opposite. Let us demand our world leaders broker peace and turn a blind eye to violence and aggression amongst ourselves, to accept as unavoidable what we decry as immoral and corrupt amongst those we oppose. Let's accept drug addicts and alcoholics and the deeply
damaged into our movement and then act surprised when things fall apart.'

I began to see everything we did for what it is; not, as we had assumed, a way of coming together and achieving our aims, of getting things done, of changing our world, but an incredibly sophisticated way of doing nothing.

So afraid are we that someone powerful might arise that we expend all our energy attempting to prevent power within our midst. And the result is not that the power has been taken from the naturally powerful -the articulate, the clear-minded, the strong- and given to the weak. But that power had been taken from everybody, and given to no-one in the movement, but in fact by castrating
ourselves we had given power to the government, and anyone who might oppose and disrupt us.

We could not have made ourselves more powerless and ineffective if we tried.

And I laughed. And I laughed. And I laughed.

I imagined disrupting circles, yelling at people, trying to wake them from their collective hallucination. And yes, the irony is not lost on me, that coming together with talk of waking up and freeing the masses, we devise an ingenius method of putting ourselves to sleep.

"Behold! I am a Zen Activist, in total rebellion against the Mind!"

I continued to laugh, rolling about on a grassy bank with the sunlight on my face and an eagle soaring overhead. A cicada, jumped all of sudden from the  bushes and I gasped. Suddenly I was out of my head, away from my thoughts, and I was a newborn child underneath a clear blue sky.

And I came to the boathouse, a cylindrical concrete structure rising out of the water with a bridge from the land. Starlings wheeled about and I stood awestruck. I looked down at the water and saw them flying underneath. Their reflections were real to me.

And I repeated over and over again "It's beautiful, it's beautiful, it's beautiful." Sounding out the vowels long, like a child that's just learned to speak.

I crossed to the other side of the river and lay down on the path and started to bawl. I cried misery and defeat, aloneness and abandonment, hopelessness and despair. 'Where are you?' I yelled, 'Where are you?'

Then I got to my feet, entirely at peace, and walked along quietly for a time.

I realised that I am a Machine. Everything that I had ever done had been programmed into me by God, including every moment of rebellion, every moment of doubt, every moment of freedom. I am nothing more than the monkey-boy of the great sky programmer.

I even began to suspect that God was a program, that the very idea of Free Will, of choice, was just an idea to help our brains work better. And if we don't need it neither does God. But we are aware and perceiving, that much is self-evident and cannot be refuted. But there is no 'Free Will', 'My Choice', 'My Way', or 'Your Way', there is only 'The Way', this 'Choice' is illusion, part of our programming, maybe one of the parts that makes us so interesting, but also one that leads to much suffering.

And then I felt the most incredible freedom, to realise I am nothing but a puppet. I gave full permission for angels to reprogram my brain, knowing they would do so anyway. Everafter I have the persistent vision of two purple winged angelic beings with L-shaped bars, prodding my brain, rewiring it, the top of my skull sliced clean off, sparks flying out, and behind it purple-neon glowing computers, divine robots and God The Machine.

And I became a Zen devil, seducing and corrupting, saying its all just programming, right and wrong its just my programming. 'I'm a Zen Devil, Baby, Don't You Realise.' I say to every woman under the sun, each and every one programmed to desire me. And then I became a Zen angel, comforting and healing, bringing peace and happiness, its all just programming too.

Then I went to the monastery. It looks a lot like Amaravati Buddhist monastery just North of
London, and there I ran about shouting at the monks and mocking them.

"Look at me, look at me, I'm SO compassionate.' I said, aping one of them.

"I'm SO spiritual." I laughed.

"I'm a good person." I mocked.

Then I ran around shouting "I'm enlightened! I'm enlightened! Look at me, I'm enlightened! Wow, its amazing! I'm flying! I'm flying! Wheee! Wheee!"

And I fell on the ground in front of them while they crowded round me.

"Help me, please. Help me. I need help. I need your help. Help me."

Then I got up calmly and held each of their hands in turn saying "Thank you. Thank you. You helped me very much."

Then I ran around and mocked them some more and eventually they threw me out, but they were laughing.

"We know what your doing." One of them said, his eyes twinkling with joy. "But you can't stay, here."

"Yes! Throw me out!" I cried "I need you to throw me out!"

And they did, they gently put their hands on my shoulders and dragged me off the grounds.

So I stood their yelling "Come follow me! Leave the monastery! God and enlightenment are over the next hill."

And none of them followed me, but I continued back up the path chanting "God and enlightenment, are over the next hill."

And half an hour later I changed it to "Cling to nothing, resist nothing." to a catchy tune.
And then soon I was just singing wordless syllables, and sometimes old gospel songs, and sometimes just laughing.

Then I returned to Chao De Velha, sunbathed naked on the back porch, read the Bible, meditated.
A few days later I cut out the majority of food, my distractions reduced to practically nothing. There was sun to bathe in. There was a piece of fruit a few times a day. There was a cold shower. There were long, long walks. There was air to breathe. There were trees heavy with oranges. There were chakras.

Each day I concentrated on a different Chakra. Starting from the root I worked up through the sacral, the solar plexus, the heart, the throat, the third eye and the crown. When I was up to the third eye the doorbell rang.

Pedro had arrived to tell me the tenancy was ending, that he had come to pick up the washing machine and he would be back the next day to take me down to Nisa. I told him that the timing was perfect because I just had the crown to do.

There was a small congregation of neighbours outside the door. I had spoken to them only a little but I seemed to a very popular oddity amongst them. I held each of their hands in turn and told them 'Obligado' tenderly, which means thank-you in Portuguese.

They saw me walking every day and knew I was about to take the pilgrimage to Santiago. I had single handedly cut a fallen branch to pieces that was blocking the road and helped the old lady with her chickens.

That old lady was something. I saw her everyday out in the field vigorously hoeing the earth in the blazing sun. She must have been at least ninety. I realised that I was in a spiritual community, that you  didn't need to go to Tibet to find holy people. They worked the land, the wind turned the water pumps, the fruit they didn't need fell from the trees and returned to the earth. They attended to what is important, the spirit.  

That evening I looked up at the clear night sky as the stars appeared. I saw Orions belt and it turned into a figure diving head first into a lake. I had been asking God for a sign, and that was it: 'Dive in.' Do not doubt, do not question, just go for it. I had seen a similar sign in the stones that made up the chimney. A man arms spread out, flying or leaping into the void. 'Leap into totality.'

The next day I was tidying up the house. The way of the crown chakra turned out to be just doing what is natural, there is no separation between its universal sacredness and everyday life. I cleaned the toilet, the kitchen, the bedroom. I left all the doors and windows open to air the place.

When I returned to the kitchen there was a huge snake slithering its way to the corner. It was beautiful, a two foot serpent thick in the middle moving like quicksilver over a pane of glass. I got the broom and chased it into the concrete alcove under the kitchentop. It hissed and lashed out at the broom.

This wasn't the first snake I'd dealt with, I got a large cardboard box and placed it next to the alcove. Sure enough the snake slithered in and I turned it upright. But the box wouldn't close and it the serpent was big enough to get out if it tried. So every time it moved towards the opening I had to knock it back with the broom. I couldn't pick up the box otherwise it would have a clear shot at my face, so I pushed box and snake out into the street.
Then, deciding that I couldn't just free a potentially dangerous snake in the middle of the village

I started pushing it down the path that led to the fields. The box skimmed lightly over the stones at a pace. But every now and then the snake would rear up and try to escape so I knocked it back in again.

A woman was walking up the path and I tried to warn her what she was about to see when she looked into the box. She of course screamed and called out to the neighbour. My neighbour, the old lady across the street, ran out of her house brandishing a stick and I continued down the path. Just as I came to the outskirts of the village the snake made a bid for freedom and this time succeeded, it raced towards a wall.

The lady was behind me brandishing a stick, but I told her it was not necessary. The snake had already found a home in the wall, away from people and danger.

When Pedro came the next day the townspeople told him about my battle with the snake.

"It gets bigger every time you tell that story." I said to the old lady, who laughed.

Its a mystery to me how she got the joke, she didn't speak a word of English.

I thanked everyone again and we loaded up the car. On the way down to Nisa we said little, but stopped at the coffee shop. I asked for a large coffee and warned Pedro that as it was my first in weeks, I might act a little strange.

The coffee had little effect on me, but I said this to Pedro:

"All moments are in actuality, one moment. It's all happening at once, there is no time. The things that once happened are happening right now, and the things that will happen have happened already. There is one awareness, experiencing everything, not separate souls travelling along their trajectories of reincarnation and progress. We're all in the same place, at the same time, the same being. In this point of eternity, of everything, all Truths are present, equally True and equally Untrue."

"What you said just then, I'd underwrite that." Said Pedro.

The bell chimed noon. The fire truck sped past, siren blaring. A bird pecked at something on the ground. We finished our coffees, paid and left.