A SELF-CREATED DESTINY

larry rivers

Questioning the destiny of being a reader in a world of nonreaders, like everyone in my extended family and nearly everyone I know, I wonder where I got it and why it stuck. I can remember being read to by mommy at bedtime. Daddy came home from the war and that was the end of mommy reading to baby in fourth year. With him in the house, mommy shut down and baby shut down. A raging ego was in the house demanding all attention for himself, how it stayed until I was able to get away and find my own life. First rule for self: never need to be center of attention. In the last years of high school, I moved to the garage where I found my peace and could read. I listened to jazz and mother complained that the noise coming from my room sounded like a night club. Rock n roll was new in my teens. Parents, hating the music I listened to, told me, Elvis won't last. Frank Sinatra and Glenn Miller will last. Glenn Miller is music. Whatever. Out from under their control, I rented an apartment and read just about all the time I was not working. Didn't know what I should be reading, so I read books from paperback racks that looked like I might like them, best-sellers of the time. Then, one day I walked into a bookstore, feeling like I was in a world foreign to any I'd ever experienced. The memory of it is kind of ghostly. I remember the light in the place. I found Allen Ginsburg's Howl and Other Poems, a turning point. 

dan flavin

I couldn't make out what any of it was about, but the language was familiar, the language I used instead of convoluted Nineteenth Century poetry as remote to an American teenager as Bible times. Emily Dickenson, Longfellow, even Walt Whitman said nothing to me, though Allen Ginsburg spoke my own thoughts in my own language. Eventually, I came to laugh at Ginsburg as an American poet, and later, when that arrogance subsided, came to appreciate him again, this time with some understanding. Saw him perform once in Birmhingham, Alabama, at Birmingham Southern. I wanted to transfer there, drawn to the Deep South mystique. The South has had a mystique for me from as far back as I can recollect. I don't mean the politics. The politics in the South is as dumb as everywhere else. I sometimes think about being born in some unforeseen place next lifetime. Where would I like? All places have a dark side balancing the light side. The only place on earth that has a mystique for me in later years like the South had in the early years is a Tibetan community of northeastern India. As with the attraction to the South, it's so romantic a notion it bears questioning extensively before committing. It could be fun acquiring a taste for Tibetan tea that makes Westerners gag. As for next lifetime, I'd rather leave it to karma and see what turns up. If karma chose this last go-round, I needed some serious grounding at the start. If I chose it, I lost confidence in making a rational decision for self. 

By now, having at least become acquainted with the soul, innermost self, I'm beginning to have maybe a keyhole peek into soul, itself?, myself?. Exploring the threads of destiny running through the life from first understandings, seeing them weave into patterns, reading the patterns as clearly as in a book by Chris Hedges, I see the tracks like deer trails in the forest leading to the present moment. The first twenty-three years kept the kid tied up in knots within, the kind of knots it takes a magician untie. Out of the Navy, I'd fulfilled all the you-gottas I was born into. It was a Friday. On Monday, I started school. It just worked out that way. A moment in the flow that told me, in retrospect, I was on the right track. At the moment, the weekend was the chop on the chopping block that freed self to start the healing process of untying the knots for the rest of the life, half a continent away from other people making my decisions. I became so jealous of living by my own decisions, I got the name of being remote. The process of untying interior knots became my purpose, the only purpose I completely committed to. I wanted mental/emotional health, wanted to read, to learn. There has never been a day I've missed anything that went before the chopping block weekend, but my hillbilly grandmother. 

I don't mean I deny all that went before, I just don't dwell there but to attempt to understand the kid that constructed a shell around self, a fence, to keep out anti-rational influence. I'm glad I was in school during the transition years. It gave ground to stand on while I simultaneously did my wild-thang, drank more liquor than in all the years since. Worked in a bookstore, the ideal. Thought I'd stay with it after school, the corporate bookstores shut down the small bookstores, nothing left to do but find something to do. Came to a place I realized I don't make good decisions for self. One Tuesday afternoon at lunch, it came to me I've gone nowhere by my own decision making. Decided to let chance have it. Chance could only be better at making decisions than my sorry ego. It was like turning on the ignition. Day after day, I just allowed whatever was happening to be, became aware of consciousness in apparent chance, going by events during the day. Came to a place I wanted to step out of my life for an unknown number of days, to think about things, assess, restart. By chance I learned about Meher Baba's Center, between Myrtle Beach Hilton and North Myrtle Beach, between highway 17 and the beach, 500 acres of virgin forest with the path of the King's Highway running through it. A year later, by chance, I jumped on an opportunity to caretake a farm in the Blue Ridge year round. At the time, I thought of it as therapy. Turned out it was good medicine.  

*

  

FALLING IN WITH MEHER BABA

yayoi kusama

A little bit ago I found and played a video of Mr Rogers in a remixed collage of him speaking the words in the song from different shows, "Did you ever grow something in the garden of your mind?You can grow ideas in the garden of your mind. It is good to be curious about many things. You can think about things and make believe. All you have to do is think, and they'll grow." I was too old for Mr Rogers when he appeared on tv, was one of the people that laughed at dumb Mr Rogers. Then one day I was sitting with a neighbor's kids and Mr Rogers was on the tv. The kids engaged. I sat watching him and them, listening to him, hearing his humility, his deep caring that came through for little kids. I sat there with tears running down my face for the loving attention he gave the kids and the charisma he had in their eyes. A man that doesn't speak down to kids, but talks to them the way every kid wants daddy to talk to them. I've found that no matter the company I'm talking with, the times I have brought up Mr Rogers with an adult I get laughed at in joking ways like the times I've requested Willard Gayheart to sing Little Red Wagon, a beautiful western swing love song. It pisses off the redneck in me and I want to say something hateful. I choose to say nothing and go on like I'm a good sport and can take it. I remind myself empathy is not an American characteristic, to stay home more often and let the people that don't value what Mr Rogers is doing congregate among themselves and leave me out of it. It was like sitting in church hearing about righteousness and we're such good Christians because we go to church, and wondering why the people in the church had no use for their neighbors or each other. The idea of loving one another was suspect of sexuality, like dancing, sin, repugnant. Not the kind of people I wanted to live all my life subject to. 

 

 

isamu noguchi

 

Evidently, this is what Mr Rogers brings up for me. A few times I have watched Mr Rogers on purpose, to give that vibe to my inner child, who doesn't get a lot of my attention. The video of Mr Rogers remix made my inner child dance. It woke up the kid within. I've preferred not to look back into childhood because it throws me into frustrated anger; hence, depression. But just now, my activated inner child reminded me there was much I enjoyed in that time. Why not take a look at the good times, because there were many. Like both my grandmothers, and mommy until daddy came home from the war. The neighbors up and down the street, parents didn't like any of them. We were the righteous ones. Lord have mercy. I know better than to dive back into that dark swamp. If I keep it up, I'll be cussing a streak in a very short time. The past. Let it go. As history, the past can be somewhat informative. However, recalling that part of my history puts me into a mood. It was WW2 PTSD on somebody whose screws were loose anyway. Fear to such an extreme something snapped within. He had no idea how close he came to being a victim of patricide. I reminded myself every night in bed crying into the pillow he was not worth a lifetime in prison. My sentence in his prison would run out eventually. I'd bear with it, go to school, see grandparents for affection, because a kid has no recourse; let them feed me in payment for the hitting and berating I couldn't defend myself from. He died to me and then started wanting my respect. Give me a break. Whatever. I'd think, though dared never say: I respect you like I respect dog shit--I step around it. I meant it. I learned pretty good avoidance skills from avoiding him in earnest. I went to the coast, as far as land allowed, seething inside. The hate took a lot of years to get over. Never did get over it, just turned it off like flipping a light switch. That didn't end it immediately, but it began the dimming process that took a few years, a seven-year cycle, and the next seven-year cycle working off the anger side effect at manual labor and going to an old-time religion church I loved.

 

australian aborigine

 

At this time of the life, looking back over the whole I see patterns unnoticed while involved in them. The most dynamic thing I found recently was seeing the first half of my life characterized by hate within, the second half characterized by love. I've come to see the balance. I've come to see the first half like drawing the bow string back so far that arm muscles are about to explode, holding it there until the aim is just right and letting go. The let go moment happened at age 33 when I fell in with Meher Baba. I say fell in with as a shorthand. The experience at the time I likened to a fish swimming along, saw something good to eat, bit, it had a hook, the hook pulled me through the water against my will and I ended up in Meher Baba's boat. I had no interest in rock star gurus. Peter Townsend of the Who made an album of his contribution to Baba gospel. I hated it. Never wanted to hear it again. I ended up at the Meher Spiritual Center between Myrtle Beach and North Myrtle Beach, between Hwy 17 and the ocean. Went there as a place to get out of my life for a few days or however long it took to think about things. Somebody I'd met at a party when I was so wasted I could hardly sit up straight started playing with my cosmic mind saying things like "Everything is nothing. Don't worry, be happy." My super-conscious mind that observes the conscious mind was thinking: Does this guy know what he is saying? A week or so later I ran into him at the apartment of a woman I knew from Knoxville, he had brought a kitten she wanted. I engaged him in conversation like I was talking with somebody I needed to know at the moment. I told him some things that were going on daily, signs, I'd been getting of the number 10 every day. And a spread of about a dozen postcards of Myrtle Beach, an Indian coin found on a small square of gold carpet sitting on some boxes put out for trash pickup. I picked up the coin. It said, 10.

 

 

meher baba / jesus

 

I told him I'd been thinking about getting on a bus and going to some small town in South Carolina, check into a cheap motel and stay there until whatever I needed to know came through. I knew it was something life foundation basic with no idea what. He told me about a place at Myrtle Beach, 500 acres of virgin forest, cabins in the woods, didn't cost much, had to supply my own groceries, that was it. It was a spiritual retreat for Meher Baba. I really wasn't interested in doing the guru thing. By this time I was a convinced atheist. I'd brought my own books, but found first day some copies of discourses and excerpts from discourses lying about and picked up the discourses, opened the book randomly and my eyes fell upon the direct answer to a question I had in the front of my mind. Opened it randomly again and eyes fell on a paragraph that answered another question in the front of my mind. It turned into a fun game for me playing with chance like the I-Ching, but this one was like rigged chance, like a consciousness was involved in selecting what I opened the book to. Two days of reading in the discourses like that, and some biographical the same way, all my big questions were answered. Third day, I was in the act of sitting in a chair on a screen porch to read some more and my elbow knocked over a glass of iced tea, the glass fell to the floor and broke. It was two feet away. It told me I'm not right. I realized I was a bundle of nerves and needed to settle down. Took a nap, woke wide awake refreshed, went to the meditation cabin and said, You've done it, you've convinced me. Now that I know God is, I gratefully accept the offer to guide my chariot through the rest of my life adventures. Love was the only path he allowed. I wanted the path of knowledge, not love. Later for that. I went with the path of love like a fish flopping in a net. Toward the end of the second half of my life, the hillbilly half, I can listen to Mr Rogers sing to little kids about the garden of our minds and tears bounce off my cheeks. It took several years to open the closed vault I'd locked my heart in for protection. I have enjoyed the second half so much, I'm grateful to the first half for getting me here. It's like the bowstring was drawn back so far it sent the arrow on a flight it could not have made otherwise.    

 

marcel duchamp

 

 

*

 

 

 

 

  

GOD LOVE

Mind today is wandering among reasons I came to the mountains, reasons, it turns out, that have been my guiding light as well as my blinders. Often, I remind myself I did not move to the mountains to party or climb the social ladder or belong to any club. Primarily, I was believing I wanted solitude and hard labor for a period of time. A year before, I had entered the turning point of my life. Discovered chance as an interesting aesthetic. At lunch in a Charleston diner called Frida's with an artist friend I had lunch with on Tuesdays, we talked about chance quite a lot, experimented with it some. This one particular day, we decided to let go of decision making for awhile, see where chance takes us. Before long, he quit his job working in a lab. I quit my job working in a bookstore. At a certain point, I began to ride the chance wave like a surfer, loving it. Friend wasn't able to take the uncertainty that goes with allowing chance. He started really producing art, then went to too much drinking, lost confidence and found a job. I felt like what I took for chance had a consciousness behind it. Things started happening that spooked me somewhat. A friend did tarot readings. I didn't know about such things, but had a big question and thought I'd give tarot a go to see if there might be anything to it. If so, I might get insight into my questions.



The tarot showed my path over the next few weeks, between the time of the reading and the time I took a bus to Myrtle Beach to Meher Baba's Center, the 500 acres of virgin forest between Myrtle Beach Hilton and North Myrtle Beach, between Hwy 17 and the beach. It was told in symbols, not details, such that I could understand it in hindsight better than in foresight. A guy I'd met by chance at a party at a friend's place, I ran into by chance a few weeks later, David Berndt, told him what I was feeling inside, that I wanted to get away and be alone several days and nights, as long as it takes to catch on to what is happening inside that I had no clues about. I knew something was changing, but couldn't name it. He told me about Meher Baba's Center just 100 miles up Hwy 17, then $3 a night for a cabin. No dogma. No rules and regulations. I wanted to go someplace and stay until the $200 I had in cash ran out. Over a period of 10 days before going to the Center at Myrtle Beach, I received a number 10 with a kind of glow around it that said pay attention. Every day I saw a 10 that caught my eye. The first one was on the sidewalk, King St, Charleston's main street, walking to work, stores had boxes out front for trash pickup. Sitting on top of a box about waist high, I saw a yellow-gold square rug sample and in the center of it a coin from India with a 10 on it. I put the coin in my pocket.



At the height of my atheist period, after about 15 years of throwing off what I thought was everything I learned in church, I had come to see religion originated in the human mind, another way for the few to control the many. I still see it that way, except that I was not able then to see through the falseness in religion to what we call God on the other side. Religion was an opaque glass for me. I saw its falseness and that's where my investigation stopped. Could not see through it. Finally, after receiving nine 10s with the golden glow, when I was unlocking the chain at the Center's driveway, Ralph Hernandez came out the door of the Gateway cabin waving a ten dollar bill, asking if I had change for a ten. My first thought was no, because I never did. Upon reflection, I had a five and six ones in the billfold. Strange. I said, "I do." He gave me the ten for a five and five ones, exactly as he needed it. I thought: Uh-oh. Whatever it is, it's gonna happen here.



I wasn't interested in Meher Baba, Peter Townshend's guru. I didn't want any rock star gurus. I'd bought Townshend's Baba album, Who Came First, and hated it. Couldn't stand Tommy either. I liked the Who of the Live at Leeds album. I was wanting some uncut rocknroll. Saw pictures of Baba everywhere in the communal kitchen and dining areas at the Center, thought: ho-hum. I found copies of Meher Baba's discourses lying about, some other little books of his sayings. I picked one up, opened it by chance to whatever page my eye fell on first. Picked a paragraph by chance and read it. BOOM. It was a direct answer to one of my big questions. I picked another page and paragraph the same way. Every time I opened the book randomly, I found a direct answer to one of my big questions. For two days I spent a good bit of time looking through his discourses, finding answers to my big questions every time. After two days I felt like all the questions I had were answered, answered fully to my satisfaction, with understanding. Plus, I learned things I'd never imagined. At sunset, the second full day, I went to the meditation cabin and said, What can I do? You answered all my questions without me even voicing them.



I didn't want to on one level, but had to concede. He had explained to me very articulately everything I'd wondered about for as far back as recollection recalls. My satisfaction was complete. I had to give him that. Basically, once I saw for a certainty that God, indeed, Is, I had no choice, if I choose to live honestly with myself, live believing I knew for certainty that God actually is the only reality. That was thirty-six years ago. I can attest as the witness that my attitude toward life is radically different from what it was then. To the better. At once, I'm glad the atheist period is over and glad I went through it. I learned in that time what I might not have uncovered going to church like I was "s'posed to." I felt like I was a fish swimming about, looking for something to eat, sees a worm wiggling, yummy, the hook snags and the fisherman on the shore is reeling in the line and I'm taken from my life by surprise, against my will, reeled in, removed from the water, my home, by the Master himself. Ok. I have to go with you, because I believe you totally. It was the 10th of October.



I have learned over these years that everything I've seen that he said satisfies what I believe to be the case. I've learned by now, after more than 30 years, that the real deal is to let go of determining my direction, my anything. I've finally learned the let-go-let-God inspirational saying has immense meaning and very practical application. The Master decides far better for me than I'm able for myself. Most interesting in the days of discovery was finding that although I thought I didn't believe anything concering Christendom anymore, I was comparing the sayings of Meher Baba with those of Jesus and verifying what Baba said by what Jesus said. This told me I had thrown off all that was extraneous and actually did believe the truth in the sayings of Jesus. It took me by big surprise that I held Jesus as my spiritual authority. These many years later, I'm more convinced than ever in the truth of Meher Baba and the truth of Jesus Christ. Jesus without the church is quite an amazing Christ. I see Meher Baba as Jesus without the church. Surely a church will follow, but I feel fortunate this lifetime to know Baba without a church telling me what I better not do.



I came to the mountains, because in my mind that knew nothing about the mountains, they were the wilderness. I wanted to go to the "wilderness" and live as a monk with my house my monastery and Meher Baba my abbot. It's been that way since first day. It has not let up. It has become even moreso, because in the beginning it was merely intent. By now, it has become practice. I don't mean I'm meditating all the time. I don't meditate at all. Don't feel the need. I don't have rituals or rules and regulations. I go with my flow and attempt to avoid judging others and myself. By now I've condensed all the scriptures I've read along the way, and what I find it all comes to is treat other people right and love God. That's what it's about. The Way is about living a good life on this earth. I don't mean good with lots of jewelry and expensive cars, the biggest house on the highest hill overlooking town. When I treat other people right, they treat me right. When I love God, God loves me. What more do I want?



What more can I ask? I don't dare ask for anything more. All I ask for is to appreciate what I already have. I have good friends all around me. If I needed a meal, no money to buy anything, I could call just about anyone I know and ask. Then they'd ask if they could bring it to me. That's the kind of friends I have. When I think about it, I'm overwhelmed by the people I care about, who care about me. I've come to think a connection with God is something like being plugged in. It's being plugged into something even more interesting than the internet, something that actively makes my life better every year. It was Meher Baba who originally said 'Don't Worry - Be Happy.' That simple little formula Bobby McFerrin made a happy reggae song with is just the right spirit for those words. Many times I have settled myself down saying to myself, Don't worry, be happy. It works immediately. The song has the childlike simplicity of Thich Nhat Hahn's writings where little words have big meanings.

                                                                          *