December 24, 2010

Oh how I love not knowing what day it is, not needing to know.  I'm retired!  I could have stayed in the game a little longer for the money.  Sorry, kids.  I was just physically and mentally worn out after a quarter of a century in the cross-hairs of my own ego.  It wasn't so much the job as my relationship to it.  I was growing more and more cognizant of Ramakrishna's description of a "householder's" (a regular schmo like me) fruitful life: the first third is spent maturing to adulthood, the second third in gainful employ, raising a family and such, and the last third devoted to one's spiritual leanings.  Once I began springing leaks I knew it was time, likely past time, to move into that final phase.  Ramakrishna also noted that for a householder to attain enlightenment he must cross the Ganges on the back of a crocodile.  How true.  There is nothing more divisive than the competitive world, but enter it we must.  Yet that doesn't mean we can't begin a practice, even learn to use what we perceive as negative conditions in our lives to penetrate the veil.  Just seeing things as they are begins to loosen their bonds.  What a blessing for me is this precious time in which I can just sit and be, like a jar of muddy water slowly settling into clarity.  There is no luckier man on earth than I.  I have repeatedly digested "I Am That" and now must burn the book and cauterize the spot it occupies in this brain.  My version of jnana yoga: learn it, then burn it.