I'm walking down the street in Berkeley, CA near the intersection
of San Pablo and Dwight and there is a large, menacing man sitting at the bus
stop. I may not have noticed him except that my crossing the street moments ago
seems to arouse in him a fierce agitation, an intensity that is fixed exclusively
in my direction. He seems to notice that I am aware of him because his entire
body mobilizes for action and his eyes widen as if to acknowledge an imminent
encounter.
My
body is suddenly rippling with the anticipation of possible attack. My survival
systems are coming online to marshal the necessary power to defend against a
possible threat. Heart pumping, skin tingling, pupils dilating, nostrils
flaring. All of my animal instincts tell me that this is going to be a fight.
Then
something quite unexpected happens. It’s as if all my physical senses shift
from being in the foreground to being in the background, and the overall volume
of my mind gets turned down so much that I can hear and feel stillness
everywhere. Everywhere I look, everywhere I listen, wherever I put my
attention, there is peace. I don’t know how or why it happens, but suddenly all
I can sense is a silent, all-pervasive presence that seems to stitch everything
together into one seamless fabric.
I’m
still walking across the street, but now everything is suspended in slow motion,
my awareness radiating in all directions. Stillness, peace, silence,
connection, me; they are all the same thing. It’s so simple, and the simplicity
of it quiets me so profoundly that I descend and am simultaneously uplifted to
a place that is without fear.
I am not afraid. From this perspective, I cannot even
remember what it is like to be afraid. All I know is that everything is
breathing effortlessly, everything is one infinity of connection, and somehow
that represents itself as me walking across the street.
My
attention shifts again to the man at the bus stop. He is now on his feet
walking directly toward me. I do not flinch. I do not waiver. I am moving
directly toward him looking directly into his eyes. I am not naïve in knowing
this could quite possibly be a dangerous situation, nor do I have any intention
of creating conflict. I am not denying what is happening nor am I walking
arrogantly into disaster. It is simply the fact that I have been transformed
into an ocean of limitless consciousness. What kind of injury could this
mountain of pain and fear possibly inflict on me? Does the ocean shrink back in fear at the sight of a
mountain?
Our primal collision course abates itself as terror gets the
best of him and he diverts suddenly to avoid colliding with me. As we pass each
other, he spits fire at me with his eyes and makes a gesture with his hand as
if sweeping me off the sidewalk like a Chi Kung master. He heaves jerkingly
past me, clearly confused by my lack of escalation yet also enraged by losing
this territorial game of chicken.
Immediately
after he passes out of my gaze there is a thundering voice behind me, “He disobeyed a direct order!”
His words are like ripples of insight in this ocean of my
heart. Somehow they carry with them more than just the meaning of their content,
but also a depth of knowing that urges me to investigate further the nature of
what’s happening. I am compelled to stop and see the face of this voice that
carries so much force.
I turn around to see him lingering about six feet away, half
turned toward me. Eyes burning, fists balled, chin lifted in challenge, standing
on an imaginary podium of defiance, he repeats his proclamation, “He disobeyed a direct order!”
The waves his voice creates in me seem to carry with them
pulsations of information confirming what already my mind has come to suspect;
that this man is insane, or, at the very least, referencing a reality that
mandates fear, aggression, rage, and profound loneliness. He is very likely
homeless, a victim of war, abuse, or consistent violence, and certainly
traumatized to a degree that limits his interactions to conflict and
opposition. Even though he is yelling with tremendous amplitude there seems to
be a chasm of sadness and agony into which all he says gets swallowed.
And then there it is again: a gentle, silent pressure from
within me that understands without concepts that this man is in pain. Like a
softly inflated balloon pressing imperceptibly from inside my heart, I find
myself being moved toward him, carried by an intelligence that is organized in
exactly the opposite way he is; a silent knowing that communicates to me, “Move
closer to that pain...Everything is okay…”.
The moment I decide to move toward him I know what to do. I
can feel him; I can feel myself. Somehow, arising effortlessly from this
strange and profoundly comforting silence within me, I know that he and I are
the same. We are the same person, and as that person I can sense that he just
wants to be seen, to be heard, to be acknowledged.
I’ve been there. I know what it’s like to be angry and afraid.
I know what it’s like to fight with people and push them away when what I
desperately want is to be close, to be understood. This man’s pain is my pain. This
man’s fear is my fear. This man’s rage is my rage.
This mysterious, quiet place within me somehow knows all this
when he shouts at me. From the ground of my open heart, with the force of a
warrior who respects his contender, I yell back to him the exact words he just
spoke, “He disobeyed a direct order!”
His eyes widen in madness and he takes a titanic inhalation
of air through his nostrils while pressing out his chest like a characterization
of the Incredible Hulk. He begins charging toward me with a gorilla-like
lumbering unique to the preamble of a fight, pounding the pavement forcefully
with each step, and yells, “Not HE…,YOU
disobeyed a direct order!”
His fists are balled, arms slightly held up and out to the
sides, each step seemingly accompanied by energetic thunder and lightning, eyes
fixed on me as only a predator does with it’s prey.
I don’t need to think about what my response will be. With a
precision that only the Divine seems fit to evaluate, an equally titanic silence
is already exploding inside of me. The moment he starts to move toward me I,
myself, am instantly moving toward him. Each step he takes is a vibrational
communication, a transmission of understanding from him to me that bypasses my
mind and dictates my actions. His force informs and instructs my body how to
move, my heart what to feel, my mind where to put its focus. I am silent
precision being guided step by step, action by action, toward what he possibly
hopes is a battle, and what I already know is a cataclysmic union.
I am completely
calm and relaxed. There is no fight in me. Only the pristine reality that
seconds from now I may have to wield physical force to ensure my safety. I know
it’s possible that he will attack, and yet the echo of stillness seems to
cushion even the slightest spark of fear in me. I am being moved by an
intelligence whose only agenda is to continuously override the assumptions of
my mind and replace them with one simple imperative; See this man, listen to
this man, understand this man; I am this man.
Now, we are face to face, except that he is looking down on
me and has almost fifty to seventy five pounds on me in size. He’s breathing
heavy, charging his system, puffing up his fortress in anticipation of obliteration.
He yells in my face, “YOU disobeyed a
direct order!”
Calmly, and with the gravity of an atomic detonation, I say,
“I’m sorry I disobeyed your orders. Which order did I disobey?”
Now, talking very loud but no longer screaming, he repeats
his martial hand movement and says, “I moved your spiritual energy off the
sidewalk into the street, and you disobeyed me!”
When he had originally motioned with his hand I was being
instructed to move off the sidewalk, to steer clear of his territory. Taking
fractions of a second to comprehend this meaning I, again, gently repeat, “I’m
sorry I disobeyed your order.”
When I say it, I really mean it. Of course, I did not even
realize that I’d been given an order, but that does not change the fact that I
feel compassion for how painful it must be in his world. It is because I feel directly connected to
that sense of pain that I am able to authentically speak these words to him. I
don’t need to dispute reality or argue any facts to open my heart. I know what
it’s like to be in pain. From this place of stillness, it seems effortless to
put aside my laundry list of personal preferences and just be present with a
man who needs to be heard.
In truth, it’s not even a choice. I just know what I need to
do and it happens instinctually, effortlessly, gracefully, and with a power
that has nothing to do with any measurable gradation of strength. I just know
it. And when I say it, I mean it.
As if awakening to the wisdom of my own actions, I realize
that every response I have is intended to meet him head on while simultaneously
demonstrating that I intend him no harm. I must earn the respect of a warrior by
being the warrior myself. I must lay down my sword as only an Emperor would do
to save his entire kingdom. I must put my faith in that still, quiet voice
leading me toward peace; a peace I could not get to on the exertions of an ego
bent on defending itself.
Something changes in his eyes. For a moment, it may be that
my apology temporarily disarms him. He takes a step backward, as if he is about
to abandon his motion to eradicate me, synaptic gears grinding to understand why
this skinny, bearded man is still standing here in front of him. His voice
thunders again, but this time his message is not just for me, this time his
message is directed at me while it is
clearly meant to be heard by all the Gods and Goddesses on Mount Olympus, “I am Compachi Al'Salud!”
Standing on this random street corner in the middle of Berkeley,
California, hordes of traffic and people mindlessly rambling by, I again know
exactly what to do. I hear his proclamation like a sacred call-and-response
ritual. Like a preacher on his podium calling out to his congregation to echo
the words of God back to him. Face to face with this urban Kung Fu minister of
madness, I howl back to him, “You are
Compachi Al’Salud!”
Again, he yells, “I am
Compachi Al’Salud!”
I yell again, “You are Compachi Al’Salud…!” and I add a line
while firmly and definitively beating my chest with the inside of my fist, “I
am Sarkis Love!”
Again, he yells, “I am
Compachi Al’Salud! You are…?” He pauses, intensely inspecting my
authenticity, and apparently using the pause to comprehend that I just spoke my
name to him.
I say it again, this time as if I am speaking on behalf of
all people ever liberated from the persecution of insignificance, “Compachi
Al’Salud, I am Sarkis Love!”
The Earth shifts. The Sky exhales. His hand descends like a
phoenix from it’s hammer-cocked position and floats like Silence into the
offering of a hand-shake. The crystalline serenity that penetrates the
aftermath of a storm and had been dominating the majority of my inner
experience up until this point now pours through us in all directions as he says
this time, and much, much softer in volume, “I am Compachi Al’Salud. You are
Sarkis Love.”
I take his giant paw in my humble hand. I am a peasant amidst
the majesty of this Berkeley King in his open-air, concrete castle. It is soft,
open, impeccably strong, and phenomenally receptive. A thousand worlds pass
between us in that handshake; an offering of mutual peace and respect between
two intergalactic street warriors. I am a samurai and my heart is my sword. I
bow my head and offer it up to my Master, “Compachi Al’Salud, I am honored to
meet you.”
Even though I have been looking directly at him this entire
time, his eyes are now sanctified black tourmaline; a fathomless, velvet depth
in which time seems to compress itself, once again, into silent stillness. I am
consumed entirely in that stillness, and resurrected again by his final words,
which enfold me in pulsations of platinum virtue, “I am honored to meet you,
Sarkis Love.”
Another shift and his chin ascends in superiority, legions of
glory emanating from his victorious chest. Still looking in my eyes, he nods
significantly, grunts, something rumbles deeply in the massive barrel of his
body, and I understand without words that I am dismissed from his presence. I
nod in profound respect, my jaw automatically getting five times larger in acknowledgment
of his wisdom and power. He turns and proudly walks away, his dominium as
Sultan confirmed and concluded.
I, too, am smoldering with pride from the recognition that I
have just been face-to-face with my maker. The ancient sword of humility that
usually sits dormant in my spine now sharpened to presence by his fierce
nobility.
I watch him as he walks away. I am again overcome with a stillness that slaps cold water on my face and wakes me up to a reality that ten thousand cordial conversations could never collectively add up to. A reality that I am normally too unconscious to recognize.
In that silence, in that sharp, awake stillness, I spontaneously speak softly and directly to the very Fire that has just forged me, “
I... am Compachi Al’Salud…”.
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