December 26, 2004 is a date that will long be etched in the chronicles of heartbreak and compassion we carry together as collective memory. For, united in a tragedy that, in one sweeping stroke, obliterated barriers of culture along with entire segments of population, we touched briefly upon a collective moment of Oneness. It was a moment in time marked by a word few had ever heard before: tsunami.
In that fleeting instant we, as a world population, transcended the walls of alienation with which we customarily divide ourselves into neat categories of separateness. In the grief that we shared around the globe, our hearts groped for a universal life-raft …a shred of Divine insight that would help soothe the agony of having to stand by, helplessly watching on live TV, as so many paid the ultimate price.
I too stood by, helplessly watching the drama unfold …in real life …as it was actually happening on the beach in Pondicherry, Tamil Nadu, South India. The former French colony on India’s south east coast, with its charming tree-lined streets and quaint, bistro-style atmosphere was amongst the places memorialized in the headlines of the world as it, in turn, became ground-zero in a global catastrophe that was unprecedented in our times.
At the last minute, I’d tried to schedule an impromptu getaway for Christmas weekend, and miraculously …I thought … managed to book a room at Park Guesthouse. There hadn’t been an available room in all of Pondicherry over Christmas for weeks. But, as luck would have it, a last minute cancellation manifested one at the very moment of my call. It felt like a gesture of Divine affirmation that I was meant to be there.
I checked in to the only available room the morning of Christmas Eve, a ground floor room facing the lush gardens, with the endless expanse of ocean just beyond. Traditionally, I’d always managed to secure a room on one of the upper floors, each of which offered a nice little balcony and an added touch of ocean breeze. But the ground floor was all that was left. Instinctively, something didn’t feel quite right about the room but, grateful to have someplace to stay, I let it pass.
The far end of the room featured a small, textured-glass window, framed-in with strong, iron security bars. The room was non-descript, but at least I’d be safe, I remember thinking. In retrospect, I’ve often imagined how those bars might easily have sealed my fate, had the infamous wave-to-come been much higher. Blessedly, for me, it wasn’t.
The holiday passed uneventfully enough. And it being India …French touches or not …I had to remind myself that Christmas was actually going-on, elsewhere on the planet. The local action picked-up quite un-expectedly the following morning. For me, the drama began with the sound of someone frantically pounding on my door. I was hours into the depths of meditation and in that moment would have been hard pressed to tell you what universe I was in. The sound of a woman’s voice shrieking “Earthquake! Open up!” sent me crashing back to earth. Incoherent, I staggered to the door and flung it open. My vision froze on an inconceivable sight.
At that very moment, the first of a sequence of waves came splashing at the top of the mammoth wall that stood like a fortress on the east side of the garden …a jagged line of demarcation, separating land and sea. The wall was at least 15 feet high (roughly 4 meters) and never before had I seen water even approach that wall from the beach, much less come splashing over the top.
With my heart pounding, I grabbed my laptop and ran for the street. There, I jumped into a waiting rickshaw and just shouted “Drive!” The driver smiled innocently, totally oblivious to what was happening. “Where you going?” he asked. Stammering, I just pointed away from the beach, not able to think of a place or direction to tell him to go. “No problem” he smiled, sensing some urgency in my demeanor. And away we went. As we did, I looked back behind me …in horror.
Suddenly, where only seconds before there had been a deluge of ocean, there now was no water at all. For as far as the eye could see, the ocean floor lay bare …completely exposed. In its place, waves of young Indian boys came flooding onto the beach, whooping and jumping, amid a suddenly surreal landscape …a vista that until that moment, they had only ever known as “the sea.”
What goes out …must come back in. I’ve never wanted to think about the scene that, inevitably, must have followed there. Many hundreds are said to have perished on the beaches of Pondicherry that day. I thank all heaven and earth that I was not amongst them. I watched the aftermath live on TV from a second floor café, safe in the heart of the city …shaken.
Later that day, I retreated to the haven that is Oneness, for guidance. The teachings I received were not what might have been expected. Yet, in reading it over, I started to see the drama in a different light. I began to understand that through these teachings we had been gifted with a level of insight that would help us all to look upon the unthinkable moments in our history in a very different way. Very slowly, I began to see the visions of unspeakable human tragedy and suffering that we share collectively, from the perspective of Oneness.
Reflections on the tsunami of 2004.
Applying the principle of detachment to life experience in the face of triumph and tragedy. The momentum of eternal change. The Divine opportunity inherent in the heights and the depths of human experience.
This is Oneness. Allow the breaths to come slowly and deeply and allow the fullness of this Presence to permeate your awareness. We are here now in the fullness of this Union. No more and no less a manifestation of physicality than the essence of the Totality itself. Isness …simply Is. An aspect of that Isness is no less the essence of the whole than the sum totality of All That Is. This is the essence of what we Are in this moment. And this is the essence of All that We Are.
When one is able to step back from the inclination to dissect, to analyze and to judge, one is left with the pure essence of experience. For experience itself has no agenda. It does not require that it be fit into the context of the shoulds and shouldn’ts of a linear mindset. Inherent in the pure essence of experience is the consummate detachment of the experiencer that would render the possibility of perception untainted.
When one enters the process with the inclination to categorize it into the structures of dualistic systems of belief, one affects the experience. One then adds the tinge of emotional charge that translates experience into the vibrational formulations one carries forth as karma. Without the addition of emotion, or the need to structure the experience, one is left with the building blocks of pure perception.
One has then created the context for carrying forth the possibility of perception through the medium of form, and to do so multi-dimensionally. For, the format for that perception does not change. The identity through which the perception is made possible remains intact, though the context through which it may be perceived will vary, according to the vibrational variables present.
The opportunity, for one whose sense of Self-perception would place him/her in a position to operate as a format for a broader range of experience, is to encounter experience with detachment. One is able to take the position of the observer, regardless of whether or not one is personally involved in the scenario in question. One is able to experience oneself as fully present in those circumstances, without feeling the necessity to respond, internally or externally, in any way at all. One is able to simply Be …even within the context of a maelstrom …and in so doing, not add a charge that might link that experience to the experiencer, vibrationally.
There would be no need to judge it, to agree or disagree with it, or to place it in a context relative to similar categories of experience. There would be no need to feel pained or elated by it. There would be no inclination to worry about the effects it might have in moments that could be considered to be past or future. There would be no need to respond in any way at all. This possibility of disengaging oneself from the conditioned responses characteristic of presence in a linear world serves to separate one, experientially, from the masses who may well encounter the identical circumstances.
Any and all action, relative to those circumstances would be a reflection of individual choice, unaffected by judgment of any kind. One then is able to float through the turmoil and trauma that may color the landscape and not feel the need to interact with those variables, either internally or externally. One would not feel compelled, necessarily, to take action. One would not feel inclined to register the event, through the medium of emotion, and thus build a vibrational charge that might be carried within. One is able to simply be Present with whatever circumstances may arise, and to know that the Essence of who one Is, is not affected in any way at all.
There is no death. No more that there is life. These illusory constructs are simply the medium through which experience might be registered, noted, and released into the vastness of infinite possibility. This is the format through which Creation is made possible. This is the system of translating possibility into perception. This is the basis of the phenomenon you regard as your linear world.
All action is taken by the One Supreme Presence, who enacts All That Is. And though that Presence may appear in the guise of any number of identities, both in form and formless, it is none other than Oneness initiating all of it.
The beginnings and endings that structure your illusory world are simply the means through which Creation is made possible. The triumphs and tragedies that serve as the hallmarks of human experience are simply the turning points through which Oneness may continue to delineate …and to experience …our own exponential Isness. There is no value judgment whatsoever, in any of it. All of it is no more and no less than an exponential continuation …a manifestation of an ongoing momentum that is infinite and eternal.
The in-breath and out-breath of Creation takes the form of births and of deaths. In this way, the ebb and flow of the tides of Creation are given structure and definition. The imperceptible is given form. The inconceivable is given the means through which the sciences that govern your reality may be born, and grow, and flourish …and die …in the wake of something new.
What was once irrefutable then becomes irrelevant. What is known to be true …provable to the extent that it becomes unquestionable …suddenly is able to be penetrated. The structures of perfection itself are seen to be flawed. And the solid ground upon which your entire system of what “is” and what “is not” rests, is shown to be fluid. The static is known to be perpetual motion. And the laws governing all of it shuffle and reshuffle once more, in an effort to keep up with the momentum of eternal change.
You can document what is true in this Now moment. And you can attempt to formulate a system that is designed to decode it. But all the systems in your world can not begin to decode and structure a methodology for Divine Intent. Nor would you wish to. For how can the limitless be distilled into a formula and be expected to produce predictable results? The very basis of the phenomenal world is its very unpredictability.
Patterns may be drawn …by those who perceive themselves as standing still in a static reality …only to shatter when the tides of change touch the shifting sands of your world. The rubble that is the aftermath of inconceivable destruction forms the foundation for the safe and the sure. The floods of grief that come in the aftermath of such phenomena form the basis for the peace and serenity that wash over the devastation and purge the scene of its karmic structure.
In ways that are imperceptible to the physical senses, the seed of Life Itself is implanted in the residue of death and degeneration. And even though, on a human emotional scale, the event in question may register as mindless …and Divinely heartless …from the vantage point of the Infinite, the inevitability of that level of change is a calculation whose moment was, and is, at hand.
In time, the cost in terms of human life for such an episode will come to be seen from the perspective of the timeless. A particular event will take its place within the annals of history as the ongoing patterns of creation and destruction that define your world continue to play out as human experience. The outpouring of the gestures of compassion speak to the sense of Oneness that grows within heart of the collective consciousness present. The empathy stimulated to the surface of the composite awareness transcends borders that might have served to separate those enacting the heights and depths of human experience on behalf of the whole.
Events that register in their intensity as “off the charts” serve to unite what has been fragmented. For in these “moments of truth,” one is able to view oneself in the mirror of the circumstances at hand, and to know that it is none other than one’s own Self that has participated in …and witnessed …the entire drama.
Those who remain immersed in the clouded waters of separation will have their ways diverted, as humanity flows as a collective of awareness toward the seas of Divine Unity. And individual crises, no less impactful experientially than those experienced en masse in the far corners of your world, will come to pass. The loss that might be said to have been sustained will serve to lay the groundwork for the levels of change that are inevitable within the depths of each and every individual present. For change is the order of the day …and the recipe for redemption that the conditions at hand cry out for, vibrationally.
One need not be touched, within the sanctity of one’s inner Being, by circumstances being illustrated in the periphery of one’s sense of Self-awareness. One is able to choose, through the medium of one’s mechanism of response, how particular circumstances will either be drawn and internalized …or allowed to pass without creating so much as a ripple within. One casts one’s vote, into the composite of collective experience, with every waking breath. One draws one’s lot in life from that pool of possibility, and enacts it on behalf of the whole, on the basis of one’s Self perception …and on that basis alone.
Gone are the days when one could delude oneself into believing that circumstances simply happen. There is no such thing as bad luck. Everything within the realm of experiential possibility is purposeful and calculated. All that is perceived operates within the structure of a system that is conceived in perfection and executed flawlessly. That structure will not change. It is a system calculated to sustain itself eternally. And though the circumstances illustrated by that system can be seen to do so in response to shifts in the tides of global change, the system itself remains untouched. For, it is one conceived in the Eternal and birthed into the inevitability of Self-perpetuation.
You are here, experiencing yourself within it. You are Here, as Presence, in this Now moment, embodying choice. You are free to perceive yourself within the realm of the calamities that trigger panic and chaos as they unfold around you. Or you may choose …in those “moments of truth” …to embody Self-perception and to view the circumstances in which you find yourself from a vantage point that is found only within.
You may choose, in the heights of human desperation, to recognize the possibility of experiencing your Self as the Infinite and the Eternal. You may choose to know your Self …your True Essence …to remain untouched. You may choose to liberate yourself from the endless cycle …from the ebb and flow of the tides of creation and destruction that characterize the world of physical perception …in the space of a heartbeat.
You may choose, in the crescendo of life experience, to embody the inevitability of change playing out all around you and become swept up in that momentum. Or, in that same moment, you may choose to perceive your own Essence …as changeless.
For, despite the illusory details …regardless of what may appear in the guise of magnificence or horror …who you truly Are is none of that. The opportunity inherent in life’s most poignant moments is the possibility that you might choose not simply to believe it …but to know it.
