NEVER TO RETURN:
A MODERN QUEST FOR ETERNAL TRUTH
A Multimedia Spiritual Adventure Memoir
by Sharon Janis
NEVER TO RETURN:
A MODERN QUEST FOR ETERNAL TRUTH
A Multimedia Spiritual Adventure Memoir
by Sharon Janis
A man saw Mullah Nasrudin searching
for something on the ground.
"What have you lost, Mullah?" he asked."My key," said the Mullah.
So the man went down on his knees too,
and they both looked for the lost key.
After a time, the other man asked,
"Where exactly did you drop it?""In my house," replied the Mullah.
"Then why are you looking here?"
"There is more light here than inside my house."
– A TRADITIONAL MIDDLE EASTERN STORY
Chapter Thirty-Three
WHERE IS THE KEY?
DURING THIS FIRST DAY of my five-day visit to the ashram, some of the garden workers saw me and thought I might be able to help out in their department. Several huge gardening projects were taking place at that time – the largest was the construction of a huge hill behind the main ashram building. For weeks, a line of trucks had been driving in and out of the gates, dumping load after load of soil onto the pile. Ralph was in charge of designing the ashram gardens, and he had quite the extravagant, if impractical, flair.
The garden folks happened to have a meeting with our teacher at lunchtime, and asked her if it would be okay for them to assign me to the gardening department during my stay. First, our guru nodded, but as the garden workers stood up to leave, she added, "Kumuda should be in charge."
This statement made no logical sense. There were already several very skilled department heads supervising all these projects. And now I – with hardly any gardening background – I, who was only going to be there for five more days, was to be in charge? When they told me this, I had to laugh with surprise.
Soon afterward, I was brought outside to speak with Swaroop, the man who had been overseeing all the garden work before I came along to be in charge. For this fellow, my appearance must have been a source of stress, especially since his work schedule at that time was extremely demanding. He must have been quite exhausted and laden with all kinds of responsibilities in overseeing such a huge project.
In this monastic ashram, you might go along doing your work as if it were an actual business. But there was a unique infrastructure that would sometimes jump out and surprise you when rules were changed, positions rearranged, and projects canceled or redone over and over again. The work in this place was not about efficiency. We were on a quest for eternal Truth. We were treading a spiritual path of inner transformation, to which we were deeply committed. This is why we were there instead of working for a company in the city. We wanted to be worked on. We wanted our false expectations to be crushed. We wanted our egos to be broken. We just didn't always like it when it actually happened!
Swaroop didn't know what to expect from me. He probably thought I was going to come in with a big power trip, and that my teacher may have given me this position of authority because I had major control issues to work through. He looked at me with a concerned but surrendered face. "I'm not really sure what it means that you're supposed to be in charge."
We were standing in front of the huge mountain of soil that had been amassed over the past few weeks by a nonstop train of dumptrucks. I pointed at it and said, "Well, for starters, you should get rid of that pile of dirt over there."
He looked stunned for a moment, and then realized that I was joking. He was a very serious fellow at that time, and I think this was the only time I saw him come even close to laughing. Between the long hours, the hard work, and then my being put "in charge," Swaroop emotional resistance must have worn quite thin. So he did manage to crack up at my joke, and in fact, ended up becoming a very lighthearted person as his own journey continued in subsequent years.
But for my own journey, there was a new command from my guru, with more potent words amid my recent revelations about the power of her words. "Kumuda should be in charge." These words didn’t make sense as an actual direction for me to be in charge of these garden projects. No, this was a personal command, an important instruction to the consciousness that lived through me. In a very subtle way, I realized that, in a sense, I was on my own now. I had to move into the next limb of this journey, and learn to receive guidance from within. My gurus had often declared that "the disciple must become the guru." It was time for me to discover the meaning behind this statement.
“Kumuda should be in charge.” It was time for this bird to find her wings and fly freely. Thus began an inner shift that was empowering, but also painful and difficult, as I grieved the loss of dependence on my teacher's external guidance. This time there was no statue, and no next guru to pacify me. I had to go deeper. I had to become a channel of grace unto myself. It didn't come easy.
The desert sands, dry and coarse,
remembering a different time.
Seems so long ago.
A time of showers,
frequent and sweet,
nourishing the roots,
Sprinkling the faces with shimmering light,
feeding the stream of the heart
as it overfills its banks
and carries my soul with it
into spaces neither here nor there.
The heart remembers.
The world takes its toll.
It teaches great lessons
but destroys even as it gives.
The rain of the world is hard,
so different from the soft sprinkle of grace.
It's like the rain on a Hollywood set.
You can control it to some degree,
but you can't make it be real.
My heart has never loved as it loved You.
What passes for love out here
can't touch the complete devotion
and absorption
I knew in your house.
I know there is no turning back time,
nor should there be.
The lessons of the world have been good,
sometimes easy, sometimes hard,
but expanding in their own way,
giving even as they destroy.
Giving knowledge as they
take away knowledge.
Shifting from one incomplete view to another.
Sometimes I go inside myself
and this wisdom is there,
this inner knowledge
so far beyond day-to-day thoughts.
It guides me in understanding
more about what is really going on here:
The energy flows of the universe,
the undifferentiated force that refracts
through the mirrors of the senses
to create the illusion of experience.
That energy moves through me,
moves my body to heal
and opens up channels of blocked energy.
Uses my breathing to
nourish body and soul,
shows me worlds far greater than
this transitory world of accomplishment.
It's the next phase of my evolution.
I can't judge from within it
if it is higher or lower,
better or worse.
It's just next.
On to Chapter Thirty-Four
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