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Reminiscences - Part 3
Jerry Kuhlman - Highland Yoga Co-Founder - 9/30/2005
continued from
Reminiscences -
Part 2
Our
individuality is all, all, that we have. There are those who barter it for
security, those who repress it for what they believe is the betterment of
the whole society, but blessed in the twinkle of the morning star is the one
who nurtures it and rides it, in grace and love and wit, from peculiar
station to peculiar station along life's bittersweet route. ~Tom
Robbins
Though I had
dived back into the workaday world with apparent ease, I was different. My
roots of inquisition had taken hold back in the sixties, but lately, with
the help of yoga and meditation, my self-queries were amplified. Now I
seemed to question almost every step I took. The size and scale of my
changing perspective had grown. Who was it that said that the unexamined
life is not worth living? At the other end of the spectrum is oblivion, and
there’s certainly something to be said for that, and the peace of mind that
it brings. We all know someone without the “curse” of self-awareness, and
sure enough they tend to smile more than others. But I’m here to testify
that when we start to question what we’re doing in this world, perhaps even
why we exist, a whole new can of worms opens, and like an all-night diner,
that can stays open. Those worms can never go home again….so to speak.
What we find below our successive layers is not always pretty. A question
begs an answer, and answers don’t always come easy. When we gaze into the
mirror of introspection, what we see, sometimes, can be such a surprise, and
so psychologically discomforting, that we sweep it under the rug or fog the
reflection over with our internal babble….anything to avoid the truth.
By most
measures, I was doing pretty well. My friends were amazed that I could step
back into a better job with the same company after being away for so long,
but the trouble with doing that was that the travel and change of scenery
made me see things in different ways. Stepping out of the world of those
who have too little back into the world of those who have too much was a big
step. All of a sudden I seemed to be surrounded by people who were consumed
by illusions of the American Dream. The talk around the water cooler was
sitcoms from the night before. There was deep meaning in the size and
location of their houses, and the status of their cars, and extra-curriculars.
Everyone seemed to have loads of spare time to be doing what it was they
were doing with their lives, but complained of having no time at all. From
my point of view, they were consumed with consumption. I recalled seeing
the recurring Mayan stone relief carvings in Guatemala of a serpent eating
his own tail.
And on my
“personal” side, one afternoon, I received a phone call from a woman who
worked at the Yoga Institute, the yoga school of my teacher, Lex. We’d been
in some classes together, but we weren’t well acquainted. She invited me to
her house for dinner. Hmmm. Interesting. She was definitely attractive,
but for some reason it had not entered my mind to see her that way, as a
“date”. I considered the Yoga Institute and Lex to be in the spiritual
realm, and in a way, I’d pigeonholed that part of my life, assigning it to a
higher, more serious place, away from my base self, who enjoyed a lollygag
and the company of women (understatement) from time to time, and various
other forms of entertainment. I arrived at her house not knowing what to
expect. She opened the door and a switch was flipped. At lightning speed,
she moved from the pigeonhole of spirituality to the pigeonhole of
entertainment. She was very sexy in dress and manner, and I could swear she
was coming onto me. A couple of hours pass. Dinner and conversation on
many topics, but lighthearted…..”things” were going well. Then the talk got
around to yoga and Lex. By the way, she had been dating him and he was
dropping by shortly. Another switch flipped. My head began to spin. I
couldn’t process. A Hitchcock soundtrack would have been appropriate. I
started building big judgments, huge judgments. It immediately seemed as if
she was using me in some way, but at the same time, in a split second, Lex
had gone from being my guru to competing with me to get laid. Whew. I made
an excuse and quickly left before he arrived.
I’ve thought
about that incident many times in the years since. Why would such a
seemingly innocuous situation cause me such distress and be so pivotal?
Before and since, I’ve been in the most stressful of situations. Those are
the times I seem to shine brightest. The answer of course is that we humans
get distressed in direct proportion to the difference between what we expect
to happen and what actually happens. Our expectations and the importance we
place on them is the cause of our suffering. I’d placed Lex on such a
pedestal that when I knocked him off, a part of my foundation rearranged
itself. It was a huge disillusionment for me, but temporary, just the
machinations of an attached mind. Soon I felt a need to communicate with
Lex, but that never happened due to circumstance. He would say years later,
“don’t judge your teachers, just take them for what they have to offer”.
Little did he know.
So, there I was, dear reader, with no guru (I
use the term loosely, of that, more later), and very few people in my life
who really meshed with my sensibilities. I felt like a “stranger in a
strange world”, and couldn’t wait to leave Houston again. It had become a
symbol of my discontent. This disconnectedness after feeling totally
connected during the time away. In retrospect, these people in my life were
just trying to be happy, like me. In truth, I was just a little
idealistic. I was mistakenly living in a black and white world of my own,
when, in fact, the world comes in shades of grey. For instance, I took a
higher ground in dealing with my co-workers with respect to the disparity
between their lives and the lives of the people I’d met on my trips. The
yogic balancing act is to acknowledge the despair and suffering in the world
and vow to do something about it, while at the same time having a certain
joy-above-all attitude, i.e., compassion without being consumed by it. It
was the old yogic concept of relaxed engagement, Sthira Sukkha, taken a step
further. Care for others, but at the same time be free of care. Another
yogic lesson I didn’t absorb until later on. There are certain missteps,
misconceptions, detours, that we must take in order to arrive at better
understanding.
Within weeks, my old college roommate, Billy,
called and invited me to visit him in Hawaii. I jumped on it.
Though this was just supposed to be a vacation, I conveniently quit my job,
knowing that a change of life was coming. I tidied up my loose ends, placed most of my
“stuff” in storage in my friend Marilyn’s garage (remember her?), looked
around for company, and found my friend Lee, who had the vacation time, and
inclination for adventure. We drove non-stop (except for gas) from Houston
to LA, parked the VW, and hopped a plane for Honolulu. Ahh, the next
whirlwind in my life. I seemed to thrive on it. In record time
(I just knew we'd broken some sort of record), I'd gone from the hotbox of
Houston to the gentle and fragrant breezes of Maui.
After being back in the engineering world for just a year and a few months,
here I was on the road again. I left a trail of people scratching their
heads. For the time being, I was on a solo flight with yoga and
meditation. Over the next several years I tried a few teachers on for size,
but they seemed to fall short when compared to Lex. My practice was at a
stage where I didn’t need outside motivation to continue. No matter what
was happening in my world, I’d rise early, sit meditation, assess my present
state, and devise and execute a pranayama and asana practice to balance
myself. I’ve heard the term addicted used when referring to how one
eventually makes yoga a part of life, but to me it was nothing special. It
was just what I did. The next few years would crank my practice up
further still. (to be continued)
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