You must understand, Robert Bannert was a bit different than the rest of us neighborhood kids. He lived with his grandmother because it was rumored that both his parents were drug addicts. All the parents in the neighborhood had warned their children not to hang out with him, but my parents were okay with it.
I really liked Bobby and always had a blast playing with him. Eventually my friends peer pressured me into stop playing with Bobby. I wouldn’t be a cool guy if I played with him anymore, so I abruptly and cold-heartedly stopped hanging out with him.
Now Bobby was standing right in front of me at this random restaurant that we went to in this small town in California, telling me that I broke his heart. Later, the words of Einstein came to mind when he said; “Coincidence is God’s way of remaining unanimous”. And Carl Jung’s words also surfaced, “When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate.”
I was mysteriously launched back in time seeing through the eyes of my childhood. What was startling to me was I could clearly see the beginning formation of my personality being developed, as I left my innocence to take on another role. We were all innocent back then, taking on defensive roles that eventually ended up becoming who we are today. I could see the roots and beginnings of my personality and the path that led to whom I had become.
My personality had become a conditioned survival structure that was unconsciously in a defense mode, and in control of my life. It was as if I was seeing my personality from an exterior view of understanding and awareness. This out-of-self view of self, unfolding-experience, left me tongue-tied. I can talk about it now, but not then.
Later, Jenny and I drove back to our home in San Francisco. On our way back, while driving, I couldn’t shake off what I was seeing, as my life appeared to have shifted to another field in time or maybe no-time. It seemed like the earth had stopped, and an observatory of consciousness and awareness surrounded to me.
We all lost our innocence back then as we tried to defend ourselves and adapt to the world around us. We were stainless children being stained upon. I thought; “If there is only a way to get back to the innocence of the womb of the Garden of Eden”.
As we drove back home, tears were flowing down from my saddened eyes that were seeing these deep hidden sheltered and shielded understandings of myself and the present state of human beings. Layers and layers of walls of unconscious protection I was living in that was preventing me from seeing this were shattered asunder, through the voice of Bobby, at this restaurant in this small town in California.
I have mentioned before about spiritual momentum. When spiritual momentum takes over, these types of coincidental happenings may happen. This is what I define as spiritual physics. I had been very focused on the teaching of Tao and Zen for a couple of years which seemed to accelerate this energetics.
P.S. I did get Bobby’s phone number and called him up one day to catch up on things.
You can check out Shawn's other musings here.
We lose innocence, only to gain guilt.
ReplyDeleteThrough Taoism, we try to regain that innocence, put away the guilt.