The More Things Change....

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Or so the saying goes. I am very hesitant about posting this but a long dark winter has passed for me with many changes that ironically have led me back to where I started so long ago. When I began this exploration of Buddhism and comparative religions, I was seeking a philosophy that fit with what I thought were the truths in my life. The seeming hypocrisy of the Catholic Church and the unbearable aloneness that leaving it had set upon me caused me to venture out and investigate, to find a group where I felt I fit. My first encounter was with Krishnamurti and I faithfully studied him for years. A chance reading that he was to have been cast as the Buddha by a Hollywood film director, if he had agreed, prompted me to want to know, "Who was the Buddha?" Apparently some people felt that he was the reincarnation of the Buddha. When I became a member of a local temple and two years later took precepts, I felt like I had come back home. I was happy with the sangha that I belonged to and things were wonderful. After some years had passed and the honeymoon was over, I began again to question what this was all about. Everything was not quite as wonderful when the fog lifted. I struggled again with conflict surrounding the path I had chosen. I left the Temple after some years of being a very active member. Again, the loneliness of not belonging set it. I set out again and traveled to various groups, tried different methods but nothing seemed to bring me to the end of this journey. There was no place that I could rest. More years have passed and with some luck I was able to connect with a few people who became catalysts for me. Something moved and moved me with it. Insights were clear but never rested on one particular path. Soon I found myself again studying the Christian Mystics such as Meister Eckhart and Bernadette Roberts. Before long I was reading Krishnamurti again. What had happened? I am still trying to answer this question, although it is not so urgent now as it once was. I was led in a circle. The original pull that I had felt to belong or to seek had taken me on a long, roundabout journey that brought me right back to the beginning of my search. And what I discovered was that nothing had changed, but everything had changed. That very subtle thing that leads us along was still the same, the readings and studies were not changed one iota. But something inside me had changed. My years spent on the cushion had brought me face to face with myself, over and over again. In that gradual acceptance of myself, my ego, my shortcomings and the occasional good thing, I was able to free myself from the need to belong, or to know or be wiser than my neighbor. Perhaps it is just old age setting in. But I have my doubts. Some of us grow old in chains and never know freedom. I have had a little taste of liberation. My sincere wish for the world is that we all have the chance in our lifetimes to allow life to live us, to allow it to pull us along, to get out of our own ways and see what happens. So, the more things change the more they stay the same. Perhaps five or ten years from now I will again be feeling that I have traveled the circle. If nothing else, it should be interesting.