Love Story : PSYCHOTHERAPY AND INTIMACY 2

PSYCHOTHERAPY AND INTIMACY

METAPHORIC MUSING ON MEDITATION"Wow, did I learn a lot since the year began!" This is what I say to myself at the end of every year. It was even more so in 1996. When I met my alter-ego, Master Charles. Who!? Another Irving. FINDING THE FOUNDATION Somewhere in the woods of Central Virginia, in full fall foliage, there is the Synchronicity Foundation; it is headed by a Guru called Master Charles, an American of Italian lineage. He was a monk in India for 15 years, earning the privilege to be called a Master Meditator. Therefore he is called Master Charles at the Foundation. Everybody treated him as if he was of noble birth, revering him, a few worshipping him. I saw him in all his glory, wisdom and charisma -- but for me there was nothing to revere or worship. He was the person I had been looking for all my life. He is my Irving. I have been Irving for so many people by being a therapist, a teacher, a zealot, a healer, and Loving and being Loved. Deep within me I felt something vital missing, that I yearned and searched for all my life. My search has ended because I found that missing part: Master Charles. In my life-long search for the road not traveled, I discovered the Synchronicity Foundation on the Internet, read about their principles and modern techniques for the meditational experience. I knew there was something there for me. When I saw his picture on the internet, this "Indian character" turned me off a little but I still ordered his free, introductory tape. When I heard his voice and read some of the introductory material I was convinced that the Foundation was for me. I enrolled in his Meditation correspondence course. That convinced me that I was going to his Foundation. When I saw him there for the first time I knew my search was over: I had found the other Irving. He is the most intelligent, sensitive, wise, knowing man I have ever met. He has true inner peace, the deepest of insights, creativeness and mind-fullness. I was pleased that he was an American of Italian lineage, born and raised in upstate New York. He is thin, tall, immaculately groomed, (in his Indian outfits!;) he is darkly Mediterranean in looks, speaks slowly, softly, always rhythmically. When speaking his facial and arm gestures are powerful, underlining and emphatic. He makes frequent use of his wry, sardonic wittiness that is the pleasant counterpart to his zealous seriousness. In a word, he is charismatic. Despite the superficial surface differences between us, on the inside we were as cloned. For me, it was as if we were identical twins raised by different families. (See the existential fable I wrote, at the end of this article.) I reacted and responded to him respectfully and not reverentially: person to person. The melding of the street-smart kid and the suave upstate New Yorker. The thirty-five workshop participants were awed by him and never talked to him, because they were so busy looking up to him. They responded to his questions, they asked questions but never personally related to him. No one even came close to touching him. No way. Then Big Irv, brass-balled from the Bronx, very bright, funny, witty, sharply intelligent and quick to respond, arrived on the scene. I was a born story teller. And I was provocative; from the first time we were face to face in the workshop I communicated directly to him and on every other occasion after that. I talked to him, cracked jokes, I entertained, I impressively imparted my experiences and adventures in Life, but always relevantly and appropriately. And - I touched him, shook his hand, hugged him, had several whispered conversations with him. The Workshop participants were in awe of me. "You touched him." "You made him laugh." "You got him to talk to you." And always, deep down I was serious, respectful, academic and consistently showed my respect and Love for him. And getting my message across to him that he was the one I was looking for all my life, another Irving. He made it clear to me that he understood and implicitly accepted my view of him; he communicated directly his acceptance of me. Example: at the workshop there was a retired NYC police officer who was two years older than me, (I was 71 at the time). He had attended every one of the quarterly workshops for the last eight years. "Grandpa", as we all affectionately called him, was always the first one the Master called on for feedback. After I had been there for two days, in the period after we meditated and had given him feedback, the master suddenly said, "I have an announcement. We now have an international Grandpa's Association," officially making me a member. I have been living and working in Israel since 1966. (See "Itchy" on my website.) Example: The first night it is the Indian custom to bring the Master a gift, i.e., a piece of fruit is most commonly given. Then at the end of his lecture and our meditation everyone lines up and is "greeted" by the master, one at a time. He accepts the gift with his hand and then he hands it to an assistant, who hands it to his assistant, who puts the fruit (or the small gift) in a large woven basket. There is the same ceremony after the last session of the workshop. The first time I gave him an apple, but I whispered to him that it really is a pomegranate, because it is so filled with "seeds of love." He accepted it with a nod. The last night I brought an apple and after our four-armed hug, he told me "You did very well, Irving." This was the first compliment I heard him give anyone during the entire week. So, I forgot to give him the apple/pomegranate, and as I was walking away he called after me, hushing the room, "Hey, you forgot to give me my pomegranate." I had several peak experiences during the week but in the last thirty-six hours I had a number of them. During this period the enlightenment came, and brought with it bliss. (Yes. Now I know what bliss is.) Example: On the last day of the workshop, three friends and I went out to eat lunch. This foray was in the middle of a sixteen hour exercise given to all the workshop participant, of no small talk or communication of any kind with others unless you are truly in touch with your inner Truth. (Exactly what the inner Truth is, the inner Reality is, and what the Workshop was all about, is too lengthy and complex to go into here.) We ate lunch in the dining room of the local country club, facing the 18th green and their immaculately landscaped golf course. The grass was greener than I had ever seen, the flowers more colorful, the undulating vista of fairways were truly fair ways. The people playing golf, (and in the dining room,) seemed to be quiet, happy and dream-like in their behavior. I was aware that I was in a dream-like state and I wanted to stay with it. The dining room was half-full, the tables superbly set with fine silver and crockery; the waiters attentive and quick to please and serve. The food was okay, but okay like it never was. The atmosphere at the table was also laden with Love. There was almost no small talk, a lot of quiet musing, much smiling, sighing and unspoken understanding. There was even a few moments of laughing and someone asked "What are we laughing about?" The answer came so strongly soft from one of us: "Who cares?" Joy, bliss, inner peacefulness and happiness, these were the foods for our thoughts -- while we ate. Here are more details about the exercise he gave the group at the end of the sixth day: for the next sixteen hours no small talk or communication of any kind with the others unless it is really important. During these sixteen hours of introspection and mostly silence, I learned, truly learned, how my Ego manipulates me most of the time. This Ego speaks to me in my head, (and to all of us,) with a tiny voice, (loud and clear,) instructing me how to be entertaining, witty, talk too much, be charismatic, and manipulating me to judge, criticize and to seek and give approval. It knows better than I how I have to act because it is permanently operating in the Survival Mode. As a result of the cumulative, intensive experience of the workshop, his teaching sessions, meditating with him, meditating with the group and by myself, (the whole program in effect is from six thirty a.m. to eleven thirty p.m., for seven days,) I achieved the breakthrough in this sixteen hour period by neutralizing my Ego and to subdue it -- most of the time. This labor of inner Love gave birth to my illumination. During the 16-hour exercise I estimate that I aborted about 100 jokes, hundreds of trivial comments, so many obsessive impulses to judge others. And criticism? It was a continual, mostly successful, confrontation with my Ego, in surviving the constant pressure from it to find fault in myself, in others. But I did it, not once uttering any criticism, and for the most part forgetting the Ego-push to criticize by thinking of something else. It was a sixteen hours power-struggle with my Ego and for the most part I triumphed, by containing it, (respectfully but mercilessly most of the time). It wanted to dominate my thinking, emotions and doing but I (almost) never faltered during the numerous confrontations. The Ego, with its gigantically tiny voice-over in my mind, was unfailingly seductive in giving me its okay, ("You're okay but they aren't,) to push me to look for approval; and again, oxymoronically getting me to criticize them, and then to try to seek the approval from the same sources. Not once did I succumb to the need for giving or getting approval. The sixteen hours reached the top of its crescendo when I had the insight that there is an Irving in me. (M(I)E.) Mindfully, I knew that I am Charles Irving - - or is it Irving Charles? It is the same difference. One and one = One. It is three weeks since I left the Workshop but I haven't finished with it, or with Master Charles, (also known to me as Chaster Marles.) Back in my usual routine, I still have the insight, the soft glow of Illumination, but the glow has weakened some. This because of not being at Synchronicity; also there is the inevitable erosion of day to day life. I meditate regularly and continue to cream my Ego. (Let's say more often than not.) My family and friends are amazed at the changes (outer)in me; but they are also skeptical because they had gone through a number of these superficial changes in me. In truth, I have made a transformation: where the changes come from the inside, organically growing from the positive sources in me. This is another beginning of changing change to transformation, (from outer to inner.) How long will this last? I don't know. I'm too busy to think about it. You see my Ego won't let me forget it, and most of the time I won't let it remind me. Let the battle rage on. Email to Charles Irving, or is it Irving Charles?Subject: A message from Charles Irving -- Or is it from Irving Charles? One and one is still equal to One. Dear Master Charles, Thank you again for giving me the opportunity -- after so many years of searching -- of finding the "Irving" I was looking for. Irving/Shmirving, Charles/Shmarles, as long as we're healthy. With great respect and endless Love, Irving... PS The following story is a gift from me to you -- or is it from you to me? - UPDATING A month later.I am feeling well, stable, loving and loved. I sleep better, I am losing weight, I have mostly positive dreams. Sprinkled spicily in my good dreaming is a smattering of erotic ones. I meditate a total of one to one and a half hours a day, in two sessions. I am planning on coming to the Foundation sometime in the late spring of this year. I have a new nickname, (having mostly discarded Crazy Itchy) and it is Big Me (M{I}E). With the 'I' smack in the middle. UPDATING LETTER TO THE FOUNDATION 4 months laterThe turbulence and careening in my meditating career, since being at the Foundation, has smoothly slipped into a plateau'd calmness. I am once again in love with meditation, strange as that might seem or sound. It is the Love of something that is reciprocal: Meditation gives me the freedom of being intimate with it as I choose to be. Does it sound like the love between a loving master and his faithful dog? I never had a dog, or any pet, so I can't speak from personal experience. From all I have read and heard, the love between a dog and his master is unending and unconditional. Perhaps I will put my feelings and thoughts about meditation in different terms. It is a home away from home, even when I am home. I have meditated by the sea, sitting on park benches, at my favorite outdoor coffee shop in the middle of a busy shopping mall, in the toilet, in the elevator, at social gatherings. For different amounts of time. Need I go on? It is a secret relationship with nothing to hide. Sometimes I close my eyes and sometimes I don't, depending on where I am. It is with me all the time, serving me just as I serve it, for 10 seconds, up to one hour. There are moments of jubilation, bliss, quietness, free-floating freedom where nothing is happening, and I am so blissful aware of it. There are moments where nothing is happening and I don't know it because I have gone out of my Mind. It is never boring, the "ho-hum" kind where I say to myself "This is boring. Who needs it?" I have never quit meditating in the middle because of boredom. I recognize the concept of letting go of my usual thinking, feeling and behaving. When I have negative thoughts or emotions about Meditation I tell my Ego to scram; then I go back to meditating. Meditating seems to be slowly, inexorably strengthening me, my will, my commitment to continue with being mature, loving, giving (with much less demanding hooked in there.) The model is the transforming and transcending insight and illumination I experienced during the last 24 hours of the October Workshop. My guess is that I regress about 15% of the time and (compulsively) become Crazy Itchy from the Bronx: an entertainer, wit, bulldozer, elephant shit expert, (one of the highest sources,) I am also a con artist selling my brand of Love; and all the rest of my negative behavior I so clearly showed at the Foundation. I catch myself doing this more quickly than I have ever done. I use a mnemonic to remind me to be aware: JAC, (Judgment, Approval, Criticism.) Then I can reduce or cut down on the amount of JAC of myself no Approval given or looked for, and no negative Criticism - of myself or others. Occasionally while meditating I have moments of bliss; when I am fully aware of it, then it disappears. The same for the blissful moments I experience when I'm not meditating. I see things occasionally, in 3D, as if I am fully observant - as opposed to thinking about them. Each time I try not to get too excited; I try continue experience my experience by not thinking about it, to get out of its way. I have all kinds of short dreams, most of them positive. When I am tired or fatigued, or depressed, I sometimes fall asleep during Meditation. After I awaken, during Meditation, and afterwards, I don't get angry or berate myself. My attitude is that "I guess you needed the sleep." A repetitive manifestation of friend Ego is sudden shortness of breath. I know it has nothing to do with my heart condition (sub-acute congestive heart failure,) and it only occurs when I meditate. I am still experimenting with my breathing as I am looking for the easiest, least effort-full way of doing it. Catching my breath is not a serious problem and it's happening less and less. Now that I have achieved some stability in my emotional, psychological and spiritual functioning I find myself being impatient when my family doesn't show the same enthusiasm as I have for the transformation in me. I tell myself that it will come, that I brain-washed them for forty years with Big Itchy and I have to give them more time to get used to the 'new' me. My wife appreciates and understands what is going on in my life in the last 4 months and this has added a qualitative intimacy and better communication between us. That's what I am looking for with my children but I know they have their lives to live and they don't feel the pressure of time, (as I do,) to recognize and understand what is going on with me..