Living in the Eye of a Hurricane: A Story from Satsang

Many, many thanks to Hannah for transcribing this satsang riff, which is not fun work.
(I did the slightest tad of editing to make it easier to follow.)

Yesterday when I was without power, it was a beautiful, beautiful morning.  I woke up really early in the morning. Betsy was already gone over to her place with the dogs so I was alone and therefore able to sleep, but when I woke up the first thing I did was look at the alarm clock and I noticed that it was dark and then a thought popped in, which was, “Ah- the hurricane”.

Then I looked, and she had been very careful about where she had placed them, she was very safe, but Betsy had gone around and lit candles all over the house in every room and it was like my fairy wife had been up earlier and Tinker Bell had gone around and lit candles and there were Bic lighters about and a flashlight out and all this kind of stuff that I would just find, and I woke up in the arms of love, I woke up in the bounty of love and light, but there’s a contrary story to that, you know, which is, “Goddamn it the power is out and what is she thinking? She’s going to burn the place down.”

Fortunately I must say it never occurred to me but there is that contrary story. I mean somebody could unearth that, you could find that, it’s available in the same story, but this is a perfect world, so this is a perfect story.  When Betsy and I went out to eat Thursday with her parents, her parents bought me dinner, bought all of us dinner and stuff like that because it was my birthday, and it was beautiful. Her mother went to a great deal of trouble to let me know that I was very loved and very special in her heart. It was beautiful. She’s 90 years old and she really went to a lot of trouble – she loves me very much and I love her too, and it’s – we have a special relationship, but it was beautiful to see her doing this.

While we were out I was in a high entertainment mode as sometimes happens, so I was the comedian and everyone was just rockin’ and rollin’ and we were just having a great time and at one point where everyone is just bent over laughing or whatever, Betsy says casually, “We just never have a bad day.” And everybody – her family pretty much knows that anyway – you could see that it just struck through because it was so clear and direct and honest. We just never have a bad day, and she looked at me and said, “Do we?”

And I said, “Nope, never.”  And you could see that it just carried in a different sort of way to the rest of the family because it was like, son of a bitch, these guys are a fairy tale, what’s this, right?  And it’s because this is a perfect world, and she and I had made that decision.  I know you could find things to the contrary to that but only from a position, and Betsy and I are not living from positions.

I’m not saying there aren’t any unit preferences, there certainly are but neither one of us is married to them.  You would not believe how fast we can flip flop, which is, let conditions change like this throughout the day, let’s just say that the storm is threatening, then the storm pulls back, the storm threatens then the storm pulls back.  We can tell you why it’s a good thing that the storm is coming in real close and then we can turn right around and tell you, “Thank God it’s not going to affect us at all.”

And next,  “Oh look it’s coming again, this will be an adventure.”

Then: “Oh look, it’s pulled back, we’re saved.”

I mean, it’s just, it’s this ability to not be – it sounds like I’m lauding Fred and Betsy, I don’t mean to do that at all – it’s just an example of the ability to not have our happiness be contingent upon our conditions because we will be forever unhappy so long as that is the case.

It’s exactly what [someone in satsang] said earlier when they told us, “I am trying to find something outside of myself so that I can be happy, so that I can finally finally finally be complete, so that I can be enough, so that I can get the approval I just know I need, from you over there.”  Boy, it’s just illusion chasing illusion,  You are, and this is it, and that’s that, and it’s all good.  If you are going to tell yourself a story, tell yourself  a happy one: it’s just as easy, I swear to God.

And you all already know, you all know [a lot about] my past, I’m not a Pollyanna you know, just waking up from one great dream to another great dream. You’d be surprised, some of you would be quite surprised about the daily challenges that are here now.  But I can’t find anything that is supposed to be other than the way it is. I notice that I can think it can be other than the way it is, and when I tell myself that story and believe it, I suffer.

However, in the absence of that story, there is an absence of much in the way of suffering.  I mean, it’s a perfect world – to the extent I believe that – that is the extent to which I am suffering-free.

If we don’t inquire into our thoughts, the mind machine will indeed find problems so long as you allow it to run on unmonitored. So be alert, that’s what I’m saying. Be alert.