In many conversations over the years I have found myself planted on one side of a fence, leaning in, looking over. And according to my companion's words — through words thoughts, in thoughts timber, trimmed timber rails, rails become fences, fences framed vision, in pictures a mirror of one's Self — there was a way of being that was correct, a way of being that was incorrect. There was — is — one practice which brings you to wholeness, one God (as it were) telling you the way to walk most clearly, telling you what to do and what not to do, in words shaped by your mouth and in commandments shaped by your mind.
I kept finding myself on the other side of the fence and, when I was younger at least, imagining I was missing something. I was fenced in, after all. The world must be larger, I must not have understood, the beautiful words must be holding the Key and that key was invisible to me.
Some years have passed, and I have done a lot of things. I have sat in a secret society in Indonesia and been tested for purity; responded to a young Muslim who asked why we had murdered our prophet (Mohammed was almost murdered as well, but she was young and I was not well read); been the channel for some fine poetry and less-fine poetry; sat within the sound of the breath of a world-class sitarist as he played his raga in the stone-lined hall; stood atop a high mountain; wondered at the strength of the Tibetans; picked pine cones hidden in the brush at the feet of my mother; looked as far into the sky as I could, with feet still planted on the earth, and seen the Void and what fills it; been baptized; broken bread with the Guarani; made a circle round the world, as free from its surface as the sun; learned the rules of jacks and the curves and scents of a lover's body; recited Whitman from memory and read Aurobindo as though it sounded inside of me and clamored to hear itself; was burned dry by the wind and the hours of sun on the western prairies; held an ancient arrowhead; kissed and been kissed; cried and been slapped and been held.
When you begin to count the Ten Thousand Things, you understand that beautiful metaphor for everything is just large enough to draw you on and draw you out. You begin cataloguing, and in making your audit fill pages of memories even with a single day of living. 999… one thousand. And as you count you begin to make sense of things. The sky opens as wide as it will go, then opens further and takes your breath. Five thousand… six. Your young love matures and gives you fruit; you protect that harvest so long as it is held in your arms; sometimes your young love does not survive. Nine thousand… 9,700… 9,900… 9,999…
Oh.
It is likely I have made little sense to many of you. I have offended more than is my share, I think, by speaking without framing the words first. Without fencing them. But here is what I discover: I looked at the fence of my neighbor, and believed he had fenced me in. I looked to the left, and then looked to the right, and saw the fenceline end. It bent in a circle as large as his thoughts, and then it closed in on him. He defined, she professed, what had worked in the end. But a fence that protects, also holds you in.
It is important, I decided, to make a distinction between those practices we adopt in our physical lives, and the Center for which we all yearn, and many of those practices attempt to define. Don't mistake the church for its God, or the asana — which is Shakti — for Shiva. Don't mistake a path for the Way, when every way leads to same communion. Use the practice which eases your mind, which acknowledges your body, which frees your spirit. But never make of it a fence, a wall, a room, a cell.
By remaining open we remain young, and by remaining young, all things which are beyond our grasp will fly to present themselves to us. What is my next surprise? That I knew less than I believed… again.