I am Compachi Al'Salud

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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