Enlightening Nonsense

The phrase “get your day in court” has been used almost to mean that one will get justice, or in New-Age terms, “Karma will take care of everything.” As I sat for three hours on a hard wooden bench waiting for my case to be heard, I had a lot of time to reflect and one thing that bubbled up was that our “justice” system is really an embarrassment in the fact that it shines a spotlight on the fact that we as a society are too childish to take responsibility for our own actions and “do the right thing,” to speak Spike Lee-eze. So when two yogis came to court last night to duel in downward dogs, it just emphasized to me how far we’ve fallen from union.

Cutting the history of what led up to this “day in court” to the bare bones: I worked at a yoga studio for about five months. I ended up being fired from the yoga studio. My records seemed to suggest that I was underpaid and being that on two separate occasions in the past this had occurred and the owner had acknowledged underpaying me after my bringing it to her attention, this didn’t seem out of the ordinary.

After about five months of emails either being not responded to or being told that, “You’ve been paid what you were owed; this matter is closed,” it seemed the only way to rectify the situation was to go to Small Claims Court. It is not coincidence that the word rectify is so close to the word rectum because, in the context of going to court, you have to be a real ass not to be able to sit down and come to a mutual agreement that is satisfying to both parties without a judge. That’s like saying you and your lover can’t reach orgasm without a 4-foot midget named Hector joining you in the bedroom (shoot me an email if you want Hector’s rates and contact information.)

While I was sitting there waiting, my ass flattened to such an extent that I had a flashback to a day in my youth when my sister and I put books in our underwear and asked our father to spank us. Had I been aware of what a pain in the ass I was going to be growing up, I probably wouldn’t have asked for an additional beating. I meditated and was finding a nice state of peace when the bailiff came up to me and said, “You have to keep your eyes open in court.” I laughed, reminded of two other incidences where my meditations were interrupted because they didn’t fit in with “building code requirements.” I also can meditate with my eyes open and despite looking like a good little boy who is able to sit in his seat quietly because he has been tranquilized on Ritalin, I transitioned pretty easily.

A feeling of calm had entered my body and I set my intention on sharing that calm energy with Lea, my ex-yoga lover in search of her Hector. Now let me make this clear: I am not a yoga poser. I didn’t do this because I thought I’d be scoring karma brownie points or score imaginary real estate in Heaven. And I am not writing this to make the gullible among you to think, “Oh, he really is such an enlightened master!” I did it because I didn’t have a choice. Really it wasn’t “i” who did it, the one who thinks and controls and judges and pretends, but the capital “I” from inside that just “is” and just “does.” So I can’t even take credit if I wanted to. This type of choiceless choice is not something you can consciously make; it makes you.

So from my calm state of being, my Witness, who has the grand mountaintop view, not only saw this whole situation and the whole court system as ridiculous but it also saw that Lea may be feeling at ease and—unlike a human functioning through ego—it doesn’t get off on another’s distress, at least not without our tiny friend Hector lending a hand (and what a cute little hand he has.)

I was told to arrive by 6:10 p.m. and by the time we were seen it was around 9:20 p.m. I had already felt I got the lesson I needed from my long meditation. Little did I know that the Universe was going to smash down Her hammer onto my head to make sure it would sink through my thick skull.

As we made it to the judge’s bench, me, Lea and her attorney (no shit), I started to laugh. I could see the Cosmic Comedy of it all and it is like the feeling of slipping on a banana peel and going beyond the mindless anger of, “Who left this thing on the ground!” you finally realize, “Hey, that’s pretty friggin’ funny! I hope a few others got to enjoy a laugh from it.”

We had waited about three hours after five months of piss-poor communication after a dozen cases about “I didn’t like this bed I bought from him” and “He did crappy work in my home” and “I didn’t get the service I wanted from the health club” and “They told him to put the keys under the mat but they shouldn’t have,” which usually ended in solutions like, “Go in to his store and choose another bed” or “Go back and fix up the job” or “Give her a refund for the unused months of her membership” or “Keys under the mat? I don’t know what the heck you two are talking about!” Lea laughed as well and at the time I thought it was because she saw the Cosmic Comedy as well but after what transpired I think it was her “mirroring” me to show me, as well as the judge, that she’s calm and cool and not affected.

This is a big difference between myself and many others with whom I’ve interacted. For the most part, I am ME. Maybe at times I’m ME wearing a costume of a swami or maybe at times I’m ME wearing the costume of a moron but I’m ME. And when ME is angry, I don’t hide it under passive-aggressive bullshit—I show it. And usually it doesn’t linger. The passive-aggressive pussy is just playing a game. She is showing her one-upwomanship by saying without words, “You see how calm I am remaining while you blow a gasket? Now who is the real spiritual person here?” And usually her anger doesn’t dissipate; it just takes a different form that is more subtle.

In the last email during our romance that Lea sent me, she included all the days I worked and the students present. This was exactly what I had needed and been asking for the four months prior. I wrote a gracious email back, thanking her for doing a great job. I went through the dates and people and pointed out to her where some confusion had occurred and where some continued to linger. I shared how I was off in a few incidences because I had never been made aware that one of the students who would often take my class had now been put on a work-study program where she wouldn’t have to pay for classes. 

I also showed her where, by her own records, there were days that I had worked that she hadn’t listed. I said that this indicated that the total amounted due to me was from $65-$90, depending on whether some students were also considered staff or not. I suggested we get together for dinner and settle this once and for all and bury the dead past and hopefully create new, positive memories.  She didn’t respond to that email or my next one that I sent a week and a half later that started, “I don’t know if you received my last email as I didn’t hear back from you.” Nor did she respond to my next email, written over two weeks later that said, “Hope you are well. The last email you forwarded from your payroll person documented that you didn’t pay me for several days that are listed in your book. Please review my last email regarding the detailed breakdown of the errors and respond with a confirmation and a check.”  This resulted in me sending my final email a week-and-a-half later, which said, “I am looking into Small Claims Court to get the money you owe me, as documented by your own records. I or they will be in touch.”

I didn’t really get it—her records showed that I wasn’t paid for days that I had worked.  What was the major malfunction here? She could have easily responded, “I don’t have a record of you working on that day” or maybe even, “Oh, okay. I didn’t have that. Cool.” Clearly I had fallen short by falling into Einstein’s definition of insanity, by repeating the same action (sending emails in my case) and expecting a different result. I had also fallen short by Freud’s definition of insanity, which entailed seeing everything as a penis. Regardless of what could have been done, here we both were going to “get our day in court.”

I had felt hurt and angry by our past dealings. I didn’t so much mind being fired, as in a moment of “mountain view” months earlier when waling with her I had told her that she would end up firing me. On the way out of the studio after the last class I taught, her showing up to do “office work” probably the second time ever in five months while I was teaching clearly because she didn’t trust that I wouldn’t leave a pool of urine in the corner somewhere, I said to her, “I am not angry at you. I know you were just playing your part. I hope you aren’t holding any anger or hurt from anything that might have been said between us.” To me this was just saying, “We were players in the Cosmic Play, it was fun, now I’m on to do a tour of “Guys and Dolls” and you are going to continue running your show. If I didn’t always give the best line-readings, I don’t want you to focus on it—you have your own theater of the present to run.” She responded in what appeared to me as exasperated frustration, “You just don’t get it.” She was right. I didn’t get why she couldn’t take what I said as a hug and not feel the need to hit back.

I was hurt that after we had shared a lot of talks together, walks with our dogs, a few classes and teachings together, her taking care of my dog while I was away for a weekend and me taking care of her dog for a week, that she didn’t show me the respect to call me into her office and tell me, “I love you but this ain’t workin’.” Instead I received an email telling me I was done.

I was hurt and angry that she couldn’t see that that I wasn’t trying to get from her anything I didn’t believe I earned (the yoga yama, or abstention, known as aparigraha) and that clearly there was a misunderstanding coming from one or both of us. Even if she did go through the records and come to the conclusion that I was paid accurately, her “This matter is closed” read as very dismissive, not just to the issue but to me, and is it ever really helpful to another to dismiss another?

So while I was hurt and angry and frustrated, just like Lea was obviously hurt and angry and frustrated—despite her playing the passive-aggressive game and acting like she wasn’t—I started to “pad the bill,” so to speak. To the lawsuit I picked the top range of the possibly salary owed to me, $90. I added the time her lack of professionalism and response forced me to spend researching and printing out all of our email interaction for court, going to her studio to talk (where after waiting a half-hour in the hallway I was essentially blown off, as pressing business matters seemed to come up for her at 8:30 at night), me to go to court and back twice—all billed at my $105 private training hourly rate. The total amounted to over $1000. When I was told that the court fee was more money for a claim of over $1000, I filed for a grand. Did I honestly think that all of this was worth $1000? No. But I also did think she had to be held accountable, and responsible, for all of the time I had spent because she wouldn’t respond to me beyond, “We’re even. Fuck off!”

The judge immediately threw out anything that wasn’t related to the salary. So I sheepishly had to say, “Uh, then that leaves $90.” Truthfully at this point, after the hours of reflection while cases about people wanting to be compensated because the pack of pencils they bought didn’t specifically say that, “These pencils will periodically have to be sharpened for continued use,” I didn’t want to fight anymore and I didn’t really want $1000 anymore. My childish desire to punish her was gone and I no longer wanted her live by a variation of the dead and still unburied Biblical law, “a hurt for a hurt.”

The judge, who happened to be pretty cool, unlike that bitch Judge Judy from television court, said to Lea and her attorney, “We went from $1000 to $90. Do you want to pull out your checkbook and write a check for $90 and be done with this?” Lea was like, “No,” and her attorney, who looked like a young kid just out of law school wearing an ill-fitted suit and pretending that this case was as impacting as Rowe v. Wade, said something like, “We will show that there is incontrovertible proof that my client owes him absolutely nothing.” I couldn’t control my mouth and repeated, “Incontrovertible?” as he appeared to me like a 6-year old who had just learned a new word and I was reminded of that old Latter Day Saint’s commercial, “Dad, today Jimmy at school called me pre-jew-dice.” “And who is Jimmy.” “He’s my Jewish friend.” “Then you are prejudice, as he is your friend and not one defined by his religion. And besides, what did I tell you about associating with Jews?” Those Mormons may be freaks but they sure know how to make a good commercial!

We proceeded to go through the days in discrepancy. The first two days I listed were days that in Lea’s own records showed that I hadn’t been paid. She showed how I hadn’t signed-in for them. Now I didn’t look hard at the book and see if my sign-in was somewhere else; I trusted that she was telling the truth. But then something became clear to me that shocked me a little. I am pretty positive Lea knew that I worked those dates; they were on Tuesday night and that was the class I taught. I turned to her, ignoring the judge and her “incontrovertible” lawyer and said, “Lea, do you just want to win this or do you want to seek truth?” She said, “You’re not in the book. I’m trying to run a business here.”

Again, sounds logical and it would be if there was no set schedule and these were classes claimed that no one had any record of. I taught Tuesday nights. She knew this. I asked her, “You know I taught the Tuesday night class. What are you saying, that I was away?” She said, “You might have been on vacation.” Now I was certain she just wanted to win at all costs.

On reflection, the yogi in me can see that she was obviously hurt and angry and wanting to make me suffer. But the human in me was pissed that she clearly knew she was screwing me on this account. Incidentally, the yogi in me also liked the healthy wheat side, while the human in me liked the sweet frosting side. The judge was like, “No sign-y, no payee.” I’m not sure why she suddenly has a Chinese accent but if that’s my only lie of this story, so be it.

We went through class after class. All of them were getting dismissed because either there was a person in the class that was not a teacher or some other reason. When the judge would ask me if I was fine with that I was like, “Yeah,” not sheepishly but because almost more annoyed as in, “Of course, I want to get to the truth of the matter. If she has clearly shown the truth, why would I not be fine with it?” Again, I was not out for punishment but what was deserved. Apparently I was deserv-ed of being bent over the table and sodomized by Lea and her “incontrovertible” strap-on.

One class had—in her own book—three students listed under my name, which meant that I wasn’t paid for one student, which is five friggin’ bucks. I even acknowledged to the judge that this is penny-ante. Lea said that the bottom two names were not in my class but that she taught them. She said, “Can you see that the handwriting is not in your hand?” I was like, “The handwriting of the first one is not in my hand either”; I rarely signed people in, believing that most are adult enough to wipe their own asses.

It wasn’t until after court that I thought about that and wondered whether this was another dishonest trick. It seemed bizarre to me that in her informal Barbie’s Diary sign-in book, where every other yoga studio I have worked at either has a receptionist or the teacher sign the students directly into the Mind-Body software, that she wouldn’t leave a single space to separate her class from my own—that she wouldn’t even list her name or the class, just put the two students names down so it looked like this:

SWAMI X, FRIDAY, AUGUST 22, 2008

Mary Beth Wilson

Joan Jehovah

Betty Bonnet

I think I gave her another one of my, “Could you see how if I had looked at this I would have thought that those were students in my class?” She responded, “I can see this,” and once again I thought perhaps that an awareness of some of the source of our confusion would remove not only the confusion but also the anger attached to it. When the case closed Lea made it very clear that it didn’t.

I’m guessing now that they were students of hers; despite my already sore ass from the combination of 3-hours on a hard wooden bench and being sodomized by “the defense,” I haven’t lost all my trust in people altogether. Lea then challenged me with, “Do you recognize those names as your students?” Her accusatory tone flavored the question bitter, as if she were implying that I was trying to pull a fast one, rather than sweet, as if she was trying to help me come to an understanding. I told her that I didn’t recognize the name that she acknowledged was my student. Her facial response seemed confused, unsure of whether to put on the mask of, “You’re lying” or the one of “You’re an idiot.” It kind of got mixed together and was received as “You’re a lying idiot.”

There was one class on taught on July 7^th that, miracle of miracles, I had apparently signed-in for and—according to Lea’s email to me—I was not paid for that day. She showed a printout of the Mind-Body software and said that she paid me for July 1^st instead of July 7^th. The judge was again like, “Are you okay with that?” and I was like, “If she says that’s the case then I believe her,” again trusting that she wouldn’t be overtly lying.

In hindsight, and only because of the Tuesdays that she knew I worked and was screwing me out of because I didn’t sign-in, I might have said, “Uh judge, by your own sign-in standard, let’s review this: I say I worked on July 6^th. My sign-in is in the book (for a change) for July 6^th. The computer shows that I was not paid for the date of July 6^th. As far as July 1^st is concerned, I can’t be sure that I didn’t substitute a class on that day. So—by your own standards—it seems I should be paid for a day that I worked, she acknowledges I worked and for which the computer says it didn’t pay me.” But at the time I didn’t think about this because, as much of a prick as I am, I trusted her that I was paid for that day and since I value truth and understanding over a dollar, I wasn’t going to get hard over it (“prick”, “hard”—get the metaphor here?)

Finally there was one point where the judge threw a bone my way. I told her how I was not made aware that Sandy had become a sevite, some Hindi term for “doesn’t have to pay anymore,” until after a particular class that I had taught with her and the judge threw me $5. Lea couldn’t just accept the “spirit” of the understanding and had to imply that the reason Sandy took so many classes was because they were free for her. This was just not the case. Sandy came from pretty far away, I think Long Island to Midtown Manhattan, and if she could take a couple of classes in a row she tended to—even before Sandy went on the Payless Shoes yoga payment plan. After she took her first class with me, she was a regular—even when it meant her being on the Nike Store yoga payment plan. The judge stuck with her decision that I was due $5 for that class and after the constant beat-down, I had to refrain from jumping up and down and singing, “Hallelujah!”

The conclusion after going through all the dates was the judge saying to Lea, “Go into your bag and give him $5 and let’s be done with this.” Lea went into her bag and pulled out a five-dollar bill and handed it to me. I carelessly, not meaning mindlessly but meaning, “I didn’t care,” threw it into my bag.

While I could argue that I was screwed on the days that she knew I worked but didn’t sign-in and that I was due compensation for all the time I was forced to spend researching what she should have done and preparing for this case (actually, with the way I got trounced I doubt even the judge would believe I put in any preparation for my “day in court.”), all I had ever really asked for was to be shown where our records were different. As painful as it ever is, and it is often painful, I prefer Truth to convenience and would prefer a girlfriend tell me, “I’ve been fucking your best friend for the past two years,” over trying to “spare my feelings” and bullshit me about her whoring ways. And to tell me on The Jerry Springer Show—what a bitch!

The only thing that I was “satisfied” with, as I laid on my belly, my bloody rectum to the sky, was that I came to an understanding of where the confusion lied and also that this whole matter was done, no need for a burial as it had completely rotted out on its own accord. That was with the exception of how it ended after the gavel went down…and also one little tidbit that I left out from earlier.

After I put the $5 in my bag and by any self-respecting commentator on the sidelines—not that there was anyone else in the entire courtroom besides a couple of staff at this point—not only had I lost but my snout was pushed into the pile of shit that was, at worst, an innocent misreading of the words, “You were not paid for June 17^th and 24^th” as meaning “I was not paid for June 17^th and 24^th.” You would think Lea would be satisfied with this. It’s funny, because this often happens with passive-aggressive pussies: they can hold it in for a while but eventually their angry queef is let out in a blast.

“How dare you! With all the free classes you took! With the free weekend you had! This is on your conscience!” The judge bitch-slapped her mouth shut but I was the one who felt more of the sting to my cheek. Once again, I didn’t get it. I thought we were done with this. But obviously, while the legal decision had been “settled,” the emotional one had not.

The other bombshell, that I almost couldn’t believe I was hearing when it happened, occurred earlier. I don’t know if I intentionally left it until the end to share it or whether on some level I knew it would be too much of a nuke for anyone to concentrate on the cap guns thereafter. Her lawyer started spouting, “Your honor, the claimant was fired from her place of employment for sexual harassment—“ Both the judge and me chimed in at this point, the judge to say that my termination had nothing to do with the payment and me to say, “WHAT THE FU—?” While the judge “overruled” that fairytale, I had to defend myself.

“That’s funny, this is the first I have heard of this. I was told that I was fired because my numbers weren’t up.” I should have added, “So Lea, were you lying then or are you lying now?” I actually remained fairly cool during this but the aftershocks were tremendous, kind of like surviving a nuclear war and then spending the rest of your short life looking like The Toxic Avenger with pieces of your body falling off daily as you piss blood and your poo is neon green.

This hit me in a couple of ways. First of all, this “tactic” was not spontaneous. It was not just a “spur of the moment” thought by the pocket-protector, pimply, newbie nerdy lawyer. They had clearly discussed this and like on the old law T.V. show, “The Practice,” this was their “Plan B” to take the prosecution totally off their guard.  And even if that was the reason I was fired, I’m guessing his supposed point was that I was disgruntled, not that I was a pervert, so why would what I got fired for even be presented.

Secondly, while I didn’t particularly care for how she fired me, I didn’t hold any anger towards her for the actual firing. I mean, one thing I was a little disappointed at was that she chose to allow a mild discomfort—because, truthfully, when I taught she was almost never there and if she were, it was in the office and it was usually a “Hi” and “Bye” interaction—to get in the way of me being able to teach at her studio, which served not only me, for when I teach I am in “flow” and that is heavenly, but for her students who clearly liked me and clearly were benefitting from what I had to share. So the “disgruntled employee trying to strike back at the boss” was just false on the face of it. And she knew this.

Thirdly, WHAT THE FU—? There were only two incidents that were both not sexual harassment that I could even conceive may be what the allegation was about. The first was a girl from Canada who was only in for a week and took my lunch class on a Friday. I found her cute and after class we talked for a while. She told me that she was going to come in for the two-hour class tomorrow and I told her that I would see about taking that class as well. I was going to have a chance to interact with her again, not because I like having the opportunity to do 200 downward facing dogs instead of 150.

The next day I found myself running late and am not a huge fan of showing up late; to me it shows a disrespect for not just the teacher but your attitude towards the class, that it is not worth putting in the effort to show up on time. If you had a business meeting with Donald Trump to pitch him the rubber ice-cream eating glove would you show up 10-minutes late?  I didn’t think so.

So I came at the end of class to see if I could see her again and we could talk. I was too late and she was gone. I ended up going into the records of new sign-ups to get her contact information. This is clearly a no-no but I never allow the law to get in the way of potential love. I sent her a text message that was meant to be more mysterious than creepy. I wrote something like, “A stranger would like to see you if you have time.”  She didn’t reply. Sometime in the future—I don’t know if it were a week later, a month later, whatever—I sent her another text message. I got a response back like, “Who the hell is this?” I wrote back that she took class with me in New York and she didn’t respond. Sexual harassment?

The incident that I think this related to was a girl named Kathy who was in the teacher-training program and came with her friend to take my class a couple of times. I thought she was cute, although I did think she was a child in conscious development. At worst I could be accused of statutory spiritual interest. But I did figure she’s into yoga and I haven’t really related to anyone in awhile…why not check it out.

She had sent out an email to the staff, saying that Lea wanted teachers to submit essays for her newsletter. I sent something and she wrote me back that Lea wanted me to cut out the references of Bill Clinton getting blown by Monica Lewinsky in the piece. At first I bitched, saying how if people are going to get offended by such a minor nothing…but soon I agreed. And even she said she understood where I was coming from, that a good Bill Clinton blowjob joke is a terrible thing to waste.

I later wrote her an email asking her what she liked to do outside of yoga. I think I might have even included some specific questions, like “What kind of music do you like?” or “What is your favorite food?” She wrote something back that was vague and didn’t really give me anything specific, almost as if one wrote, “I like music and I like food,” reminding me how I answered essay questions back in the day when I didn’t have a clue. But hopefully one has a clue on what they themselves like, no? I wrote back something like, “Lame. You didn’t answer anything specific,” and she responded with an ass kicking. “I don’t know you! Why would I want to tell you things about myself?” was the gist of it. I think I might have written back something like, “Sorry, I just wanted to get to know you.”

The next time I saw her at the studio, I was about to teach my class and she was just leaving from maybe taking the class before. I delayed starting class and went up to her in the hallway and said, “Hey, I’m sorry about anything that might have offended you. I was just trying to get to know you.” She said that there was no problem. On later reflection I realized that this is a modality of Lea’s as well and probably an energetic pattern in her studio that attracts the type of person where, “No problem” usually means, “There is a problem but I don’t have the balls the discuss it like an adult.”  Sexual harassment?

I suppose there was the time I rubbed my penis against Will’s cheek when he was in Corpse Pose but that clearly doesn’t constitute sexual harassment. Just a friendly caress, really.

For whatever reason, the snot-nosed, “incontrovertible” lawyer gave the judge his card. She said she didn’t need it and handed it to me. The proper response would have probably been to crumple it up and toss it back at the Pro Boner. I was somewhat in shock by some of the transpirations that I just took the card and put it in my pocket. The lawyer said to me, “Call me if you need me.” Needless to say, I won’t. But if you want a lawyer who will gladly fuck the opposition up the ass without any lube and you don’t mind the smell of Oxy 5 Pimple Cream, his name is Eric H. Blinderman, aptly named because he is blind to giving a shit about the feelings of the man opposing his client, and he can be reached at eblinderman@proskauer.com or by calling 212-969-3822. Just make sure for sanitary reasons that you have him sterilize the dildo that he repeated shoved up my ass during our trial.

If I had half my wits about me I would have responded, “Sorry, I know you got off fucking me here but I’m afraid the feelings are not mutual and we’re going to have to choke this one up as just a one-night stand.” I would have liked to say, “Dude, you’re a robot who didn’t treat me like a human but an object to be conquered. If I were to hire one of Satan’s workers, I would have someone who looked not only at me as a human, but at my opposition as well. Now kindly fuck off and die.” But at this point I was like a punch-drunk boxer after a 15-round fight and repeated head trauma; controlling drooling on my shirt at this point required an effort.

As I left I quietly said goodbye to them and they ignored me. I got my recorder that I had to turn in from downstairs and the guard was going to let me out the side door but then said, “You have to go out the front door.” I was started my rest of the evening state of shifting from numbness to tears and said, “Look, I don’t want to see those people I just dealt with,” and he let me out the side door. I never thought there’d be a time where I was too pussy to face someone with my head held up high but apparently, as the Bible says, “To everything there is a season.” Or was that The Byrds?

I walked in the light mist outside in what probably would be considered a mild daze. I got to the subway and downstairs, on the dirty floor, I dropped to my knees and a feeble tear or two came to me. I couldn’t even cry without Lea’s mouthpiece probably saying, “God, because of the incontrovertible conclusion of the court case that the opposition was wrong on all accounts, he does not have the grounds to cry.” And God, that prick, overruled my tears! I guess if you hold your middle finger up to God long enough you have to expect he will eventually bite it off. Instead of complaining, I accepted my tearless state and passed off Satan’s worker’s card to God.

On the train I thought, “How could she knowingly deny that I worked on those Tuesdays?” Just then the train slowed to a stop at the particular station and I saw a poster for a movie that said something like, “Just tell the truth and be right.” I appreciated the Universe’s effort to remind me that she was still with me but I told her I was not in the mood right now and to please kindly fuck off and die.

Walking home a few tears did come but not enough to really amount to anything. I think a nun passed me by and started to come to comfort me but then said, “Sorry, I require at least a tablespoon of tears before I interject.” I figured at this point God had already abandoned me, so I told her, “I would tell you to go fuck yourself but I wouldn’t want your fingers to get dirty from your dusty vagina.”

Another source of pain was that I felt that I was all alone. I started and stopped text messaging my soulmate a few times but then gave up on this, thinking that maybe I wasn’t happy with what I perceived as a serious lack of attention from her and that maybe this was me being manipulative, playing the old trump card of, “Woe is me. If you really cared you would get your ass over to me and comfort me with an ice-cream glove.”

When I got home I did text her.  I wrote her, “I feel terribly alone and afraid right now.  Turning phone off…going for run…if no client tomorrow may take it in silence…”  

By the time I got my act together, and before I had turned my phone off, she had sent me a message back. “Can I see you tom before work which is at 7 pm?? If you don’t mind…At least for half an hour.” After I got over being pissed off that she called me “Tom,” realizing she meant “tomorrow,” I felt a little better that she cared enough to respond. My bitchy side was like, “A half-hour? I’m a trauma victim here! She can’t make it at least a therapist’s hour??”

But something died in me this night…and I think it may be a good thing. The urge to fight died. The need to be right died. My old self might have considered writing Lea one last email about how she knew I worked on those Tuesdays and how I didn’t sexually harass anyone. I don’t know, maybe even my old self wouldn’t have written her. But I DIDN’T want to fight anymore. I just ran out of energy for it. Ran out of desire to pursue it. Ran out of ammunition with which to load it. Ran out of—you get the point.

What is also extremely frustrating is that I can’t blame anyone because I do have the ability to see the “mountain view,” sometimes in a situation but usually soon after. The gap between the teaching incident and the understanding of the lesson has become shorter and shorter as my consciousness has grown. The old patterning would like to rub Lea’s nose in it once again, that she can call herself whatever she wants—Lord knows I’ve called her a few choice words in the privacy of my own home—but she shouldn’t call herself a yogi. But she was doing the best she could with where she was at and I no longer would take satisfaction in her pain. But bigger than that is I see what the point of it all is.

I grew up with a silver spoon in my mouth, which makes me wonder what the hell my Mom and Dad were doing in the bedroom. I had loving parents that frequently told me they loved me, I didn’t have to pay for college, and they let me live at home until I could no longer be declared a dependent by their tax slave forms. Compared to many others difficult upbringings, my struggles are a joke.

But I am also an advanced soul who didn’t have to incarnate again but chose to, as I like drama and didn’t want to miss the party at the end of 2012.  And as a result of being fed up with having a veil over my awareness, I told the Universe one night while crying myself to sleep that I would take whatever pain She felt I needed to reawaken as quickly as possible. If most people want to learn about fire by reading about it for years and then progressing to lighting a match for a year and then a candle for the next year and maybe progressing to a Bunsen burner—I was like, “Let me just stick my hand in the fire and when I starts to char and bubble, I will know fire.”

I have had repeatedly major dumpages of crap thrown on me but it quickly washes off of me. But you better believe I stink to high-heaven for a little bit and that stink is in the form of pain and anguish.

I ran with my dog for 5 ½ miles that night. I hadn’t run in awhile and so my aching knees and hip flexors were what determined the stopping point. At one time we passed by a man with two dogs who was yelling at them and in a mean tone saying, “You sit the hell down. I said get down!” While in the past I might have offered my two-cents, I hadn’t spoken a word since I left the courthouse and I wasn’t ready to start just yet.

But it did put a nice closing on the Universe’s lesson plan that was expressed through my personal understanding of dog training, in which I have much experience. There is a difference between correcting a dog and punishing a dog. Correcting doesn’t take the behavior it wants to modify personally and its goal is to adjust the behavior while causing the dog the least amount of distress. Punishing takes the behavior as a specific attack on you and the goal is to cause as much distress as you can in the dog to scare them into acquiescing.

How would the world look different if all of us didn’t take “behaviors” so personally and sought to correct them with our respect and love for the other never dwindling? Instead we seem to desire to punish the other until they are left half the man or woman they used to be.

I reflected on how I wouldn’t have wanted to be awarded $1000 in this case, that I thought it would be too much and would leave Lea hurting. I thought how, in my opinion, Lea wanted to leave me feeling crippled and if she knew of all the pain that was circulating through my veins she would have the attitude of, “Good, he deserves it!” Of course she would say it in New-Age passive-aggressive terms and say, “Hey, it’s his karma,” all the while reveling in the fact that karma was striking…and I was hurting.

 

REFLECTION:

Think of the last person close to you with whom you had a serious argument, not over something miniscule like who uses the better steroids, Mark McGuire or Sammy Sosa, but something that really rocked both of you to the core. If you “won” the argument, are you happy how things ended up?  If you “lost” the argument—I don’t have to ask. The truth is, there are no winners or losers in arguments designed to put the other down. How important was it for you to win that point? In hindsight, did your need to be “right” outweigh your need to be love? If you could do it again, which would you choose?

MEDITATION:

Imagine yourself with the last person close to you with whom you had a serious argument. Imagine yourself as your soul, sliding out of your physical body and watching the argument from above. How important does your soul think the specifics of your argument is? Does your soul care more if you “win” or “lose” the argument or if you keep your soul connection with this other person with whom you care about? What is the argument really about? Usually it has nothing to do with the “toothpaste cap being left off AGAIN!” but something deeper.

Bring your soul back into your physical body. Notice how things change. Allow your soul to take the reigns. Imagine it saying, “What are we really fighting about? I don’t really care about the toothpaste cap. I care about you. I’m sorry if I got distracted from what was really important. I’d never brush my teeth again before I would let toothpaste get in between my love for you. I love you, baby.” Hopefully if this was with a same-sex co-worker he will understand that your “I love you” wasn’t an invitation for some bathroom sex…unless that is what you desire.

“Hearing your voice

my fight goes limp and oh comes the

love flood.”

—from the Introduction by Ma Prem Maitri for Walk Without Feet, Fly Without Wings, and Think Without Mind by Osho