Practice Run

Day 13

This retreat is just a practice run—a taste. I’m being pulled to do it longer, deeper.

The real challenge for me is with people. I’m so happy to be in silence. Whenever I do talk, I find myself incredibly impatient. Ninety-nine percent of what I talk about seems totally unnecessary, totally unimportant, totally preprogrammed, and endlessly repetitive. At times I feel I could just put in a tape, play my past conversation, and go to sleep.

Until I can remain in that place of unconditioned awareness without being shaken from it, there is no way out. Who would guess that I’d be happy saying to people, “I’ll see you in a month.”

I have blissful evenings sitting on the lanai reading, watching it get dark, hearing the mynahs fly down to their nests for the night, smelling the sweet, fragrant night-blooming jasmine. I’m in heaven.

One of my most treasured books is The Heart of Awareness, a beautiful and moving translation of the Ashtavakra Gita, one of India’s most sacred texts:

What is yesterday,
Tomorrow,
Or today?
What is space,
or eternity?
I sit in my own radiance.

Why talk of wisdom,
The three ends of life,
Or oneness?
Why talk of these!
Now I live in my heart.