Testament

Rain beats insistently against the windowpane. I look out at two instant rivers rushing down the sloping drive between this house and its neighbour. When I first put this computer in the corner of the room, it was to avoid the distraction of looking out through the windows on either side, but that seems foolish now. If I cannot actually be out, then at least let me have sight of the world, in all its moods and weathers. Under the sky, breathing the precious air that blankets this globe enabling life and letting in the sun’s rays or at least daylight through the cloud cover—this is the place of my inspiration. There are those who find God in the innermost recesses of the heart. Perhaps they are happiest in the monk’s cloister or the hermit’s cave. I salute them. I have wished to be a nun, though my gender would have been just one of many obstacles to achieving this desired vocation. For thirty years I followed the instruction to turn my senses inwards for an hour a day cross-legged, and any other time I could snatch from “worldly pursuits”. I’ve meditated on trains and planes; attended to my breathing in waiting rooms; yogically tasted divine nectar in business meetings. It’s a strange kind of achievement to look back on, for it offered few obvious rewards, apart from the one which is best illustrated by the story of the madman in the asylum. “Why do you spend so many hours banging your head against the wall?” “Because it’s so nice when I stop!”

Four years later, it feels even nicer. Instead of listening to someone who said “Surrender the reins of your life to me” I now follow my own impulse in everything—almost. Of course, I encounter people who know better than me in certain ways and I listen to them too. But when I allow their dogmatism to over-ride my own intuition, I have to learn again that my deep impulses can be trusted.

It wasn’t that I merely sacrificed an hour of my day to the dubious benefit of inner meditation. The influence of my beliefs was more subtle and pervasive: a voluntary abandonment of self-determination, a refusal to follow my own intuitions and emotions. It cost my body dearly and I became progressively crippled by chronic fatigue syndrome, again over a thirty-year period, staggered by two years. It started after my guru-discipleship and finished after, sustained daily by a vicious circle of fear: of illness, of death. It left me in a single conscious instant. In that moment, I knew that the illness would never more hold me in its grip. That knowledge has never wavered since. Till then, I had pleaded with God, negotiated with angels, paid healers. I hoped I might get better before I died, but feared old age might steal my faculties first.

Now I have trust in my deepest knowings. My gratitude is permanent. I love this world. Every day I appreciate my surroundings: the sky, the weather, the trees, the animals, my brothers and sisters of all lands. My days are numbered but I’ll leave with the lemon fully squeezed, the wine drunk to the dregs (though wine seems to come without dregs these days!); and no regrets.