Acceptance

Seems like forever since I last wrote. A lot has happened in the interim. The big news is that I am moving back to California next month. I was recently offered a new job doing software modeling and simulation for a solar power company in Pasadena.

I’m very excited about this opportunity for a couple of reasons. For one, I’ll be working on a problem in which I’ve had a personal interest since the 1970’s, when I entered the Lion’s Club speech contest in high school on the “energy crisis”. Although I’ve been personally working on simplifying my life and reducing the need for large amounts of electricity, I’m not such a fool to think that this country’s attachment to a high consumption lifestyle is going to change as quickly. So perhaps it’s a bit of a stopgap measure to work on producing lots of “clean” energy, but a necessary one. As the sun is the source of most of this planet’s energy in all its forms, I think the closer we can come to getting our energy directly from the source, the better. It raises awareness and promotes awakening. Karma yoga, Arjuna. This is also one of the reasons I don’t eat meat any more.

There is another benefit as well. My new office is about 10 blocks from my girlfriend’s apartment. How is that for a small miracle? Especially given that it’s about 1700 miles from my (soon to be ex-) apartment. And I’ll also be able to see David (my teacher) more than once or twice a year.

Still, this wonderful opportunity doesn’t come without a cost. And this brings me closer to the topic that I really wanted to write about today. For the past two and a half years I’ve been working in a medical school research lab with two of my best friends (a married couple). We’ve all known each other since graduate school, over 20 years in total. It wasn’t easy to inform them I was leaving. In fact, I felt sick to my stomach delivering the news. I really like the job I’m leaving, a lot. And to be honest, there are many more unknowns in the future job.

This isn’t the first time I’ve disappointed someone very close to me. In fact, it seems to be inevitable every few years that I drop a bomb like this on someone. I’ve written some before about my divorce. Trust me when I say there are several other examples. It never gets easier.

Awakening can be both joyful and painful at the same time, a bittersweet process. Some people may look at me and think I am crazy; and maybe they are right. But the one thing I am certain of is that if I don’t follow my Heart, I will lose a piece of my aliveness. It doesn’t take too many compromises to become a walking dead person. Believe me, I know, because I’ve been there. When you’re there, it doesn’t seem like you’re dead, but in hindsight it becomes obvious. And when I say aliveness, I don’t mean in the thrill-seeking sense. That is just another form of being dead, albeit with enthusiasm. No, the aliveness I am talking about is a deep acceptance of life as it really is. All of it - the bitter, the sweet, the boring, the exciting, the empty, the full.

During meditation lately this acceptance has come to the forefront of my awareness. It lives in the cells of one’s body. The energy of acceptance is not easy to describe. It moves as the universe moves - with ease, with fury, or sometimes not at all. We don’t realize just how much we are constantly escaping the reality of Now, even at the cellular level. Always looking for something other than what is. Can your cells just Be there, where they are, without the need to become something else? Can you live with your decaying flesh and the inevitability of your impending death? Can you disappoint another and be true to your self and the Universe?

Coincidentally, I am listening to a collection of songs I have at home which I call “Heart Music”. Right now, I am listening to John Lennon, and the lyrics seems oh, so appropriate to this very moment:

God is a concept,
By which we can measure,
Our pain,
I’ll say it again,
God is a concept,
By which we can measure,
Our pain,
I don’t believe in magic,
I don’t believe in I-ching,
I don’t believe in Bible,
I don’t believe in tarot,
I don’t believe in Hitler,
I don’t believe in Jesus,
I don’t believe in Kennedy,
I don’t believe in Buddha,
I don’t believe in mantra,
I don’t believe in Gita,
I don’t believe in yoga,
I don’t believe in kings,
I don’t believe in Elvis,
I don’t believe in Zimmerman,
I don’t believe in Beatles,
I just believe in me,
Yoko and me,
And that’s reality.

The dream is over,
What can I say?
The dream is over,
Yesterday,
I was dreamweaver,
But now I’m reborn,
I was the walrus,
But now I’m John,
And so dear friends,
You just have to carry on,
The dream is over.

Bittersweet, indeed.

Photo source: http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/pickoftheweek/old/01aug2008/