A Darshan moment

 

  

So long ago. A moment of liberation. 

     Leaving Mass, annoyed. Prayers for the Viet Cong to convert? Really? When did prayers work, I thought ? What good has this faith done for any of my unhappy, drink sodden relatives including my family? Enough, I'll sleep in and find my own way. How many have gone down that road ?

   Then marriage to my love and Denver. "Please come to Denver in the Springtime." Yes, we will. "Hey, rowdy boy why don't you settle down, Denver ain't your kind of town." A baby girl in tow and then another child to be born there. Looking sadly down I70 towards home a thousand miles away. 

Pack up and west to California, land of beauty and all that is good. A lovely tri-plex, walks to the library with toddler's hands held, sandy beaches near by, nasturtium growing in the front, a garden. What more do you want ? Oh ,but want is who we are. There's a hole that no one ever talked about. Oh, maybe St. Augustine did. But how long has he been dust?

Then this happened, with everything I ever wanted surrounding me and in the quiet of a rented living room, I said this: "God, if you are there, help me. " Nothing happened but I felt better. 

  I have told this story before but I came across a word today that says what happened next so well. A week later I picked up a small book as a gift. The cover said something about love but when I started to read I was hooked. A story about a saint's statue never getting greasy after years in a kitchen piqued my interest. The essays were from another book that somehow I got my hands on despite no Amazon. "Quantity of a Hazelnut"

 It was darshan." It's a gift; it's like there's a moment in which the thing is ready to let you see it. In India, this is called darshan. Darshan means getting a view, .....as if the clouds blew away and you could finally see the Himalayas. They are letting you have their view, say the people of India, darshan. This comfortable, really deep way of getting a sense of something takes time. It doesn't show itself to you right away".(Gary Snider)

I blew the clouds away with an invitation, help me, whatever that means.

From then on for all these years sentences in a book would mean something, they would jump out. So many guides :Merton, CS Lewis, Fae Melania. The clouds were blowing away and I could finally see.

What a treasure to have found that metaphor.