
I was walking in Central Park with Abandon for our nightly Central Park walk which we both look forward to, her to enjoy running wildly with reckless abandon and hassle a few raccoons and me because I’m a nature boy and find it very peaceful to walk in nature, even nature in “The Cement Jungle” (but one who likes gadgets and Internet service, so Walden Pond is out for me!)
I got to my tree friend by the lake and I did our usual greeting of sharing a few “HA” breaths together, a Hawaiian tradition taught to me by my friend Kumu John Lake, and then standing with my back against him and looking up at his branches and the sky beyond them. Abandon usually explores on her own, sometimes hassling the ducks by the bridge, and then usually comes and sits down somewhere near me, seeming to keep guard but I know that my sweet vegan dog is really just checking the terrain for small animals to kill.
Often on this walk, I listen to a talk by Osho on CD and tonight was no exception. Also common is that my CD player (yes, old technology. I still have a Walkman as well, bitches!) indicates that the battery is low and stops playing. When I get home and check the battery on that $5 tester I got from Radio Shack, the needle will always go into the green “GOOD” section and I am forced to come up with a “spiritual” explanation, like, “Probably at that time the Universe wanted me to explore the beauty in the silence.” Inevitably, I use the same battery next walk and it works for a half-hour or so and then cuts out on me again, usually right when Osho starts to drop a bomb like, “So the meaning of life is—”
Leaning against my tree looking up at the solid gray cloudy sky, I asked Osho something in frustration and it wasn’t about the battery situation if you were worried. I said, “You said on the CD tonight, before the battery indicated low and stopped playing yet again on that damn CD player,” (okay, maybe I did mention the battery situation) “that when one finds a living guru their search is over, that they don’t need to seek any more methods or techniques or teachers. Well, I found you but you’re dead. So where the hell does that leave me?”
Before he responded in words, he responded in imagery. Just then a small hole in the solid gray sky passed overhead, revealing the full moon shining brightly in all her glory. And as soon as it opened, it had past and the moon, too, disappeared into the grayness.
“Truth is always there inside of you. It has only been covered by the clouds of ignorance in the form of beliefs that hide it from view. You don’t have to do anything in order to see it clearly. You don’t have to do any special ritual or mantra or perform any austerity in order to add more light to the Truth. You just have to remove the clouds and it shines brightly for all to see.”
“So are you saying that I don’t need a living guru?” I asked.
“Many people have lived 30, 50, 70 years and are still not alive. A guru is alive by the life he brings. He doesn’t just sing when there is a song to sing. He sings life. He doesn’t just dance when the music is playing. He dances life. So if you want a guru, one with a body or one without will serve you just fine. But you don’t need a guru, living or dead. You just need to remove the clouds and sing and dance life.”
I left my tree friend, thanking him for his support and friendship. I called Abandon from her explorations under the bridge where I couldn’t tell what exactly was going on besides a lot of frantic quacking. We walked the rest of our walk in silence—and not just because of the damn CD player.
It’s New Year’s Eve. I received an email from a girl with whom I did a production of “West Side Story” many ages ago. She used to send printed out letters to everyone on her list (pre-email) that would have me in stitches. Not because she was funny. She wasn’t. But because they were loaded with the most inane collection of boredom one could imagine. “Uncle Jed fell off his rocking chair today. Luckily his overalls hooked onto the chair and softened his fall so he didn’t break a hip.”
So I received an email from her today, the first I’ve heard from her in about a year or two. Apparently it was her “Year in Review 2009!” edition. She started out writing:
Happy New Year to all! As I look back, 2009 wasn’t all that bad (I know many are happy for it to end!)
This raises a bunch of stupidity flags in my head, including the fact that like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Immaculate Conception, Mother’s and Father’s and Valentine’s Day and the concept of time itself, celebrating the end or beginning of the year is equally made-up. But reading how “many are happy for it to end!” had me pulling off my flags and looking for Uncle Jed to beat up with the posts.
This isn’t like Friday, where in our society that made-up a 5-day work week, you have a couple of days off from your indentured servitude to get totally sloshed out of your mind in order to try and forget the misery that you call your life. God’s cleaning lady Consuela doesn’t come in for a special day of “slate cleaning” on January 1st. It’s not over, jackass, and won’t be until they lower you into the ground. And event then it won’t be over. Come Monday your life is still here with all its challenges—only now you will have a few more ridiculous “resolutions” to soon enough add to your list of failures.
I would like to give you some brilliant thought for the New Year. Something like, “Keep it real but keep it fun, too.” But we don’t need anymore useless aphorisms that taste as sweet as sugar but are as poisonous as Aspartame.
Osho said, “Don’t be a Christian. Don’t be a Muslim. Don’t be a Hindu. Be yourself.” By “yourself” he didn’t mean the insecure, arrogant ego you walk around with mistaking is you. He meant “your Self,” the real essence that lies beyond the clouds of beliefs and insecurities and self-aggrandizing.
How’s that for a New Year’s un-resolution:
Stop believing in clouds and let your moon shine brightly.
Most of you in the New Year’s will probably just commit to more diets to break and disciplines to make you feel guilty about—more things to supposedly make you “better” [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOIOOhbNYMc]. That is revolutionary thinking. But it is not the thinking of a rebel. A rebel knows that there is nothing better than what is and it’s only by seeing it clearly that perfection is experienced and not just dreamed about.
My wish for all of you in the New Year is to drop being a follower; to drop being a believer; to drop being even a revolutionary. And to become a rebel, one who is willing to drop everything he has accumulated, and to just be yourself. This commitment to join the Rebel-ution will start to create a space in the clouds where you will get a hint of the beauty of Truth.
This rebel yogi is growing tired of kissing himself each year when the ball drops. But he certainly would choose that over kissing a cloud.
“Truth is. And you are full of it.”
—Osho
“Shit is. And you are full of it.”
—Swami X






