Seeking Independence Day

A Sermon by Janice Martin

Delivered to the First Unitarian Church of Oklahoma City

Sunday July 2, 2006

In the year before I was born, my parents bought an acreage in Linwood, on the west side of Oklahoma City, where they lived with my brother and sister, and then I came along.  Ours was the last house on a dead-end street, with an expanse of fields to the west, which went on for miles to the north – all the way to Will Roger’s Park, and south beyond the fairgrounds. It had a little brook running down the middle, and it bloomed a carpet of purple and white in warm weather. There were massive oak trees clustered together on the side of a small hill to make a shady picnic spot, and our neighbors on the far side of the field had horses, Lady and Chess who loved to nibble carrots and sugar cubes from our open hands. There were two gigantic cottonwood trees on either side of our house, one on sixteenth street and one on twelfth. Even though they were blocks away, because they were so large and the fields vast and open, I could hear the rustling of the breeze through them at night from my bed, as if they were right next to me, as I would sleep with my face in the opened window. During storms I could hear the wind shaking and blowing these trees, loudly pelting their leaves with rain; afterward, I would check on them to make sure they were still standing, and they always were.. These trees, the horses, the little brook and flowers were a part of my life and family in this happy place we called, ‘the meadow’.

My mother was a gifted organic gardener.  On birthdays and special occasions, she planted fruit trees for each of us, saying, “This is your plum tree, in honor of the day you became a boy scout”, or happy fifth birthday, here is your cherry tree.”  We would have elaborate tree-planting ceremonies complete with dedications and photos. In later years, as the trees bloomed or were loaded with fruit, another photograph would be taken. I remember vividly standing on the upturned rain barrel with my head amidst the blossoms of an apricot tree, alive with buzzing bees mere inches from my nose.    In the picture, I was forcing a smile through tears, (I have always dreaded getting stung, ) I was trying to give my mother what she wanted – the appearance of  a perfect child on her birthday. I was wearing an apricot colored dress, neat white gloves and a ribbon in my hair.  I wanted to be running in the meadow in my jeans and a worn-out t-shirt.

My mother believed that her children could be perfect, with the right upbringing. She believed that if you planted something in earnest, tended and watered it, you had every right to expect ripe fruit. She wanted her children to see the natural order of things. If we obeyed our parents, followed the Bible, and were good, we would receive just rewards. If we went to church, admitted we were sinners, prayed and repented, we would secure our place in Heaven. No one wanted to go to Hell, least of all me. I was afraid of Hell, and was sure it was a very real place. The most important thing was to be self-sufficient, never asking for help from others, only from Jesus.

I always wondered how my parents managed to get a picture of our family on those Kamp’s grocery bags that said, “Go To Church On Sunday”. They had the tall, lanky father, the petite mother in hat and gloves, and a trim young boy and two little girls in their perfect Sunday dresses, just like the ones my mother sewed for us by hand. Amazingly, they were heading in the direction of what appeared to be our very own Presbyterian church!  We were the picture of 1950’s family values. Going to church on Sunday and following the family rules were the ties that bound it all together.

We always ate dinner at 5:30 pm, saying grace then passing around a box of Bible verses with gilded edges for each to read. I enjoyed the lessons of the Bible, I just didn’t always agree with my parent’s interpretation of their meaning. I often silently thought they were missing the point. My parents had severe prejudices against other races and religions, really, anyone who was not like us. In sixth grade my girlfriend, Kathy, came home to play at my house after school. We walked from the school playground down the hill and across the expanse of meadow leading to my house. Kathy was bowled over by the dozens of trees laden with fruit ripe for the picking. She saw the lilac bushes taller than her head, with blossoms the size of dinner plates, the huge organic garden full of corn, beans, melons, you name it. We sat on top of the tool shed eating peaches still warm from the sun, juice dripping down our faces and arms. Suddenly, Kathy asked if she could be my best friend. I didn’t know what to say. Later, when I told my mother, she looked at me gravely and said, “You know, Janice, she can come and visit again, but she can never be your BEST friend, because……Kathy is Catholic.”  My mother seemed to think that I would just know what that meant automatically. “What’s wrong with that?” I was thinking that this was a free country based specifically on freedom of religion, but that was the last thing I would say to my mother.  She told me, “Catholics PRAY to the VIRGIN MARY! They made saints out of the apostles! They think the Pope is God Almighty! It is sick! It’s a sickness! Not a religion!” Whew! Okay, I got it.

Around this time, several things happened. I was turning twelve, and was preparing to be baptized by participating in communicants class. Our parents taught us that babies and children under twelve had a free pass into Heaven, but on that magical birthday, you became responsible for your actions as a sinner, and baptism was the very least you could do to stay out of Hell.  I went for a week and learned about the life of Jesus, which I found moving and beautiful. I got to ask all the questions I wanted of our pastor, like, where, exactly, do you think Hell is, and why does your wife, who is so giving and loving have the worst rheumatoid arthritis imaginable, with all that twisting and pain? I believe she is truly so good and pure, so why does she have to suffer? It made no sense. 

Also at that time, the city of Oklahoma City began surveying the vast meadow beside our house to plan construction of a new north/south highway, but we didn’t believe they would ever go through with it. No one would actually lived north of Hefner road, would they? This was our meadow, our extended yard. We had been hunting Easter eggs there in the spring all my life. We rolled down the hill in our rain barrel in the summer, and checked how the creek overran its banks after storms. We built igloos in the wintertime, back when it really snowed here, and rode our sled down the hills with all the neighborhood kids. It was our meadow, it belonged to us. How could that ever change?

Another thing that happened then was that my father began to grow restless, so he took extended jobs out-of-town, staying away for long months at-a-time.

My mother became preoccupied with the doings of the highway department. They had condemned many houses all around us to make way for the coming construction, and families were beginning to move out. My mother devoted herself to saving as many of the shrubs, flowers and plants as she could from the inevitable bulldozers who would take down our neighbors’ houses. My brother, sister and I would gather gunny sacks and shovels, and in the middle of the night we would collect, or more accurately, steal, any living thing my mother thought we could transplant. We even went to the fair grounds after the circus one night to gather elephant droppings for fertilizer, just to expand the adventure. We thought it might make the plants grow really big. Over that summer, we transplanted 77 varities of rose bushes into our back yard, which was now exploding with butterflies, songbirds and intoxicating fragrance. It was enchanting.

In the daytime, before each meal, my mother would have us recite the Lord’s Prayer, then pray in great detail for my father to come to his senses and join us at home. She would get very specific, as if micromanaging Jesus and his miracles would magically clear up the situation.

My private discussions with God happened in nature. I would gaze up at the vivid blue sky in my meadow, contemplating many questions. One day, I was laying at the edge of the meadow in our  yard, under a Catalpa tree we had recently planted for Mother’s Day, and I was wondering, “What is the one absolute truth? What is the thing that will never change, and will always be true?” Suddenly, I had the physical sensation of having floated to the top of the world. Looking down through God’s eyes I could see that I was not a young girl lying in the grass, asking questions of God, rather, I was a thought in the mind of God – a conscious Being was thinking me, and that is why I existed.  This moment of clarity was more intoxicating than the roses. Just when I needed it the most, my lifetime of spiritual seeking began. I felt completely connected to a Supreme Consciousness, a vast life-force in which my mind existed and contributed. I wanted to know more about this absolute truth I had experienced.

Soon, all the condemned houses were removed, and the soothing sounds of the Cottonwood trees were replaced by the droning of heavy machinery. It took many months to transform our clover-laden meadow into the slightly-less-pristine I- 44, which everyone in the world seemed to enjoy driving down except my father.   

Sadly, without him, my mother was not able to stay in this world. She had been growing more isolated over the years, and even stopped tending the abundant garden filling our acreage. She pointed out to me one spring that her garden had bloomed without her, as she was too depressed to get up and take care of it.

I was in high-school now, and the deep trenches gashed into our meadow were dotted with massive piles of brown dirt, 5’ concrete storm sewer pipes, and seemingly miles of rebar. Many streets were closed around us and the neighborhood was all detours.

There is a saying, “suicide is a long-term solution to a short-term problem”.  My mother  told me she had received a sign from Jesus, and she was ready to go. I didn’t believe she was really going to do this, so I told no one. For years I believed that I didn’t save her, I didn’t try hard enough. From this experience the seed of unworthiness was planted, “I am not worth sticking around for….There’s something wrong with me, I am not lovable”.

Because my mother s formula for a perfect life failed her, I became open to other ways of living. I believed that I was a thought in the mind of consciousness, and that there was so much more to this world that was unseen than seen. As my good friend Stephanie likes to say, “I may not be clear on who or what God is, but I do have faith in seeds.” I began to read philosophy books and devoured The Tibetan Book of the Dead. In Hermann Hesse’s Siddhartha, I related to the Buddha’s life of serenity and peace, then his exposure to hardship, poverty, sickness and death which inspired his spiritual seeking and the question, “Why was man born to suffer and die?” Oh my gosh, that was MY question!!   I threw myself into reading and writing poetry, and held one poem in my heart ,

"Spring and a Mother Dead” by Witter Bynner. “I who would write her epitaph would err, what could I say to anyone but her? Spring came in ringing like a bell and this time there was no one to tell.” My mother’s garden did not fare well in the years to come without her. We all missed her loving hands. I felt deeply saddened that she couldn’t see this for herself. My own depression sent me on a quest, “If I am a thought in the mind of Supreme Consciousness, then what is my purpose in this world?”

When my friend’s husband began talking to me about his Buddhist practice, I was anxious to try it. He taught me his mantra and invited me to a meeting. I met a dozen people near my age, with similar questions about life, and great enthusiasm about Buddhism. They said that a Buddha was a human being completely in touch with his true nature, and that the goal of Buddhist practice was to reveal that nature. Buddhahood is considered a state of perfect freedom, in which one is awakened to the eternal and ultimate truth that is the reality of all things. It is inherent in all human beings, and already exits within me. NOW WE’RE GETTING SOMEWHERE!  I learned about karma, thoughts words and actions whether good or evil, which imprint a latent result in my future. This idea meant that my deeds in the past created the world I was living in today, and my actions in the present create my future. Cause and effect. My heart opened to the clarity of this life-philosophy. I could see that reincarnation was an elegant explanation of why people have such different types of good and bad fortune, even siblings raised together exactly the same way have radically different life-experiences. It all made sense! The idea that my inner thoughts created my reality, I believed that! That every moment of every day was a new beginning, and I could change my karma by starting over with a fresh attitude, I believed that! Suddenly, I had the tools for living I’d always wanted. I had a new spiritual family, a new purpose in life, and there was this really cute guy named Zach who flirted with me a lot……No more guilt as motivation, no more fear of burning in Hell….and the highest authority was already within me.

I practiced Buddhism with my whole heart for the next fifteen years. It was my favorite subject, favorite activity, and Zach and I always said, “As long as we are practicing Buddhism together, everything will be all right!” My daughter Erica once gave me a paperweight with a saying from Mark Twain engraved on it, “Put all your eggs in one basket, then WATCH THAT BASKET!!” Exactly!

There was something about being a mother, by now I had two toddlers and was pregnant with my third child, that caused the old unworthiness to creep back in. I had an overwhelming ache to be seen, or proclaimed, as a successful, productive adult by my mother, or a reasonable facsimile. I longed to hear, “Janice, you’ve done it. You are a wonderful mother, a successful member of society, and your contribution is greatly appreciated.” Even though I had this active spiritual family, with lots of responsibility and success in that group, I was doing things that they wanted me to do. I was striving for perfection, conforming, being a good girl, anticipating needs and pleasing everyone. In other words, I had recreated my original family, and had lost myself in the process. It was time to break free, again.

This time, I sought psychotherapy, and began to face my depression and anger. My therapist asked if I had ever meditated. “No, I am a Buddhist, and we chant. It is much more effective and meditation is just like spacing out or napping in comparison.” He said, “Oh, I’m sure you are right. Let’s just sit quietly with our eyes closed and watch our breathing for a minute.” We began to open each session this way, and I found it so relaxing I requested that we do it for longer and longer periods of time, like it was my idea.  Soon, I was meditating early each morning, feeling joy and peace each time. I was invited to a meditation intensive to be held over Thanksgiving weekend.    

The theme of the intensive was, “The Battle That Must Be Fought”. For me this meant whatever was keeping me from experiencing myself as I really was must be cleared away. It was being broadcast by satellite from India, and as such was held overnight, which gave the entire weekend a mystical quality. The music for the weekend was Elton John’s music, “Love is the opening door, love is what we came here for.”

During the first meditation, I began to see a vast spiral galaxy in my inner landscape. I saw that I was made of the materials in this galaxy, and was indivisible from it. It was an inner ecstasy, a oneness with Supreme Consciousness. I saw this inner universe every time we meditated all weekend. I felt my heart cracking in two. All I wanted in this baffling world was to be cherished and valued by my mother. I wanted her to be there with me, and to say, “You are a good person.” It was physically and emotionally so painful, to feel all that love, I couldn’t keep it together. All the unfinished business was there at hand. The stoicism of self-sufficiency, of never asking for help, of hiding my true feelings, was a crushing weight on my being. “Please, if there’s anything to this meditation, please help me!” I had no more pretension in that moment. The next thing I heard was the deep vibration of a cello resonating music that seemed to come from my own heart, then a voice, rich and full, chanting “Om Namah Shivaya”, I bow to the Lord within me….. This voice was a salve on my burning heart. It was the love of a mother, unconditional, powerful and completely pure. I fell into the strength of this voice, giving myself over to it effortlessly.

Here was another expansion on my journey, this time a combination of Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism, which I’d never heard of, and this practice came with a guru. A guru!! For me, the definition of a guru was the goofy hippie guy who ripped off the Beatles. Why would I want a guru? Someone who takes your power away, right? Then I discovered it was the guru who was chanting in the intensive, and I wanted to know more. I was told that the word guru means turning darkness into light. The purpose of a guru is to lead you to the love in your own being, to help remove obstacles and misconceptions of the mind. And to be an example of the state in which a human being was meant to dwell. This compassionate teacher was a light on the path you are walking, and that they have already walked. Her name was Gurumayi, meaning the mother who takes you from darkness to light, the light of your own self.

Someone at the intensive had heard me crying, and suggested that I write Gurumayi, a letter telling her that I’d been at the intensive and a little about my life. So I wrote the truth, that I had everything a person could want, a husband who loved me and a beautiful family, only I couldn’t feel my gratitude, as my heart was breaking with sadness and grief. I received a beautiful letter in return in which Gurumayi said, “By sharing your contemplations with me, you have invoked the grace of the Siddha lineage. Offer everything to the fire of Supreme Consciousness”, and she sent blessings for our lives, to me and my family. The Siddhas, are enlightened beings who initiate seekers and guide them on the path to liberation, who are learned in the scriptures and belong to a long lineage of spiritual teachers.

The most remarkable thing about this letter to me was that of all the names of God she could have used and did use during her talks in the intensive she said, “Offer everything to the fire of Supreme Consciousness”, the name I had always used instead of God. It was one of those moments out of time when my feeling of connection to the greatness of life was absolutely rock solid. Here was real help and healing. I began to mentally offer my troubles, bad thoughts, anger and pain to a fire in my mind’s eye, and they would really, truly disappear. Then I offered my joy, my heart, my happy times to this fire of supreme consciousness, and they would increase. The beauty of this yoga is that it is inclusive, respects all religions, cultures and ways of being, and supports change in its practitioners. You can even become a Unitarian.

I have spent the past sixteen years learning about yoga, going on retreats by myself and with my family, and participating in dozens of meditation intensives, workshops and classes. One of the powerful teachings of the Upanishads is the idea of dharma, or right action. I have learned to ask myself when making a decision, “Given my nature, skills and personal preferences, what actions should I take to support the greater good?” I have learned to trust in my own goodness as a guide in doing the next right thing.

In the year 2000, I went with my three kids to the summer retreat at the mediation center in S. Fallsburg, NY, as I had been doing for some time.  Erica, Andrew, Alison and myself all took the two-day meditation intensive with Gurumayi, who was there, at the head of the room, in her saffron robes. I had read an article several years before about why a guru wears orange robes. They represent the flames of the fire of consciousness, and the dharma of the guru is to burn up the negative karmas of their devotees. The article was written by a woman who lived at the retreat center. She was standing in a hallway, thinking, “I wish the guru would burn away my negativities and show me my true heart.” Just then,  Gurumayi stepped into the hall, facing her. The woman said that her body burst into ecstatic flames and she felt wave after wave of overwhelming love pulsating from the depths of her being. Gurumayi moved on, the flames subsided and the waves of blissful ecstasy remained.    I had always remembered that experience, and wished to have one like it! Anyway, the intensive was almost over, and we had one more meditation to go. The instructions included sitting up really tall and straight, then taking the aide of the breath, breathing in deep and breathing out long. I was sitting on the back row of the large hall, sincerely trying to do my best to meditate. I felt the presence of someone in front of me, and since my eyes were closed, I sat up taller so they could pass. But they didn’t pass. I opened my eyes and saw Gurumayi standing right in front of me. She took her peacock feather wand, a long wand she uses to tap her devotees with, giving them blessings, and stroked me from head to toe three times, then she said, “Your love is important to me. It is important to the world. Every time you offer your love, it increases the love available to everyone in the world. It is crucial that you offer your love to the world.” I saw in my mind’s eye a reservoir of love filling and filling as I prayed, offering my deepest wish for love to exist in this world. The love poured out of my being, filling the world with more and more love. Gasp! I came out of meditation and saw Gurumayi still sitting silently in her chair. But I could feel her presence right in front of me. I was tingling with energy as the meditation session ended. The group of several hundred were invited to line up to approach Gurumayi’s chair for a final blessing. I jumped into line and was at her feet within minutes. My heart was pounding as I knelt down at her feet, offering all the love in my heart to her and to the world. As an extra boost, I also offered all the love I feel for my children, then took a deep breath as I released my love at her feet. As I stood up, she was stroking me from  head to toe, head to toe, head to toe with her peacock feather wand, just as she had done in my meditation. I looked into her eyes and she held my gaze firmly with hers. Then she began to slowly, slowly nod, nod, nod……She released her gaze. I moved across the floor to my seat on the back row. By the time I got ten feet, I burst into flames! I began laughing hysterically with the most explosive waves of bliss shaking and vibrating my body. Several people helped me toward my seat, and laid me on the floor. I was laughing and watching my old concepts just burn and burn from my being. The sadness, insecurity and unworthiness that had plagued me for so long was being boiled and burned out of my being, and it was completely, absolutely ecstatic!

Today I am deeply grateful for all the experiences of my life. I am who I am because of them. If I had not had serious doubts about my worth as a human being, I may not have stepped into the ocean of Buddhism. Pain and loss should have closed me off, instead, they made me open, and willing to seek the truth.  Depression and loneliness taught me that all longing is longing for God, for union with God.  Being a failure at being perfect has led me to see that I am perfectly imperfect. I recently read Michael J. Fox’s words, “ I am careful not to confuse excellence with perfection. Excellence I can reach for; perfection is God’s business. It has been my experience over the years that striving for excellence motivated you, while striving for perfection is demoralizing. “ Here in this place, with all of you, I can ask for help, and offer it. And as for my one, absolute truth, the thing that never changes? It is that I am a thought in the mind of God, a manifestation of divine love, an inseparable part of  Supreme Consciousness. My love is important to the world. It fills up the reservoir of love available to everyone, as does yours. I hold close to my heart this quote from a Siddha master, “You, the traveler are that which you are seeking. Everything is within you, the Supreme inner stillness is your destination.” And, “The heart is the hub of all sacred places. Go there and roam.”

Recently, I drove by my original family home over in Linwood. I was delighted to see in full bloom, the 30-foot Catalpa tree which my brother and I liberated from someone else’s yard and planted with mother on Mother’s Day, nearly 40 years ago. I saw the apple tree she planted the month I was born, still going strong, and two huge pear trees I used to climb in as a child. Right down the street, next to the highway there is a long, rolling park, full of  green grass, tall oaks, shiny new playground equipment, and many laughing children.