Beyond The Wall

11-29-05

Thank you for the latest issue of Seasons of the Soul. As we so often are, we’re on the same page with our thoughts on aging. You wrote of turning 60 and I have been writing of “The Timelessness of Aging,” which I’ll enclose for you. The Krishnamurti story and several of the comments were previously sent to you in my letters, but I thought it would be helpful to pull it together in an essay like this.

I could make light of aging by telling jokes about it, but the fact is – getting older isn’t easy. There’s an old saying that goes like this –

“The key to successful aging is to pay as little attention to it as possible.” It’s hard to do that when I look in the mirror and see an old face looking back at me.

In looking for the blessings of getting older, I find that I have a depth of understanding and compassion that I just didn’t have before. I savor each precious moment, and I can now touch the lives of others in ways that I could never have done when I was younger.

As I grow older, I also find my inner child more alive than ever. He’s “off the wall”, corny, even downright silly sometimes. I used to restrain him, but now I just turn the kid loose.

And so, here we are, growing older, but at the same time, becoming lighter and experiencing life at a deeper and more profound level.

Real Freedom

byCharles “Tom” Brown

Copyright 2005

The razor-wire fence that surrounds this prison yard only confines my physical body, and the lack of outside stimulation has led me to explore the inner realms more deeply. In the moment when I awaken from a thought or feeling or reaction, in that moment, I can recognize the clear sky-like nature of awareness itself. In that moment of wakefulness, I get a glimpse of freedom.

Many restrictions exist because we place our faith in that which changes, which comes and goes, which is temporary. Every wise voyager knows, though, that we cannot hold on to the last port of call, no matter how beautiful. To do so would be like holding our breath, creating a prison from our past.

Our free spirit beckons us to move beyond it all to that which is timeless. When the dramas of our life no longer bind us, we discover within them something greater. We discover that within the very limitations of form is the freedom and harmony we have sought for so long.

Our liberation comes not as a process of self-improvement, of perfecting the body or personality. Instead, it is born out of our capacity to work with any energy or difficulty that arises. It is the ability to enter into all realms of this world; beautiful and painful realms. Our awakening to this is possible in every activity.

Real freedom comes when we are quite present, yet not seeking anything, when we have come to rest in the moment. Then there appears a sense of wholeness and integrity, of strength and beauty. That which we were running around seeking is here at our door. Over and over again we  learn this simplicity.

The wise heart is at peace with the way things are. No longer struggling against the world and our self-imposed prisons, we rest. The quality of understanding and caring are our gifts. In the freedom of this moment we become the love we have sought. And in this love we are returned to ourselves.

11-20-2005

Congratulations on your new BLOG site, Seasons of the Soul!  www.kathleenjacoby.blogs.com/seasonsofthesoul You can post old articles from the Seasons of the Soul newsletter, and I think it will encourage you to write some articles that will reflect what you have been going through and where you are today. I look forward to reading the, if you will send them to me.

You asked about the Parole Board. In April, they told me that there would be another hearing in six months. That would have been in October, but I haven’t heard anything at all. November 6^th was the seventh year in the “monastery.” Your inspiring words to me were, “I continually am reminded that everything is in God’s hands and we are where we’re supposed to be.”

Yes, I believe that, but it’s hard to come to terms with it when you’re been in prison for seven years and still have years to go. I wrote something years ago that is speaking to me today more clearly than when I wrote it….

“We’re always trying to get from here to there; but when we get there, it becomes here. That’s the problem…so then we have another her to get to another there.

“We see it with bumper stickers that say, ‘I’d rather be playing tennis’, or ‘I’d rather be sailing’…anywhere but where we are. Have you ever seen a bumper sticker that said, ‘I’d rather be exactly where I am?’

“Ultimately, we see that every person, place, and event in our lives is perfectly designed to teach us something we need to learn to be free.”

I’m still learning from those words!

I have written some thoughts on what I believe real freedom is. I’ll enclose a copy for you.

The holidays are approaching and in order to have something timely on the BLOG site, will you post something that I have written for previous seasons? If you don’t find anything, let me know, and I’ll write something new.

The holidays are not an easy time here. There are no celebrations and no decorations of any kind. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Zippo. Big goose egg. Diddly squat. (There, I think I made my point. :o) )

The holidays only intensify the feelings of abandonment and loneliness that many of the fellows feel. If I catch myself sinking into the ‘holiday blues,” I know exactly what to do…find someone to help and then find another and another. It’s impossible for me to feel sorry for myself when I’m helping others. I remind myself that we are walking each other home.

Singing Our Song

by Charles “Tom” Brown

Copyright 2005

Jane Goodall, naturalist, recently said, “In the life of a songbird, if the egg is taken from the nest and hatched and raised by other birds than its own kind, so that it doesn’t hear its own song in the first month of its life, it will never be able to sing its own song.”

For humans, even though we never heard the song, we can still learn it. It is in us waiting to be touched and evoked and brought into life because in the end, it is who we are.

In a way, each of us is a musical instrument that is making an impression on the world around us. Our body is the instrument, our nerves are the strings, and the musician is our spirit. In a music store, if you pluck a string on a guitar, all the other guitars in the room will vibrate to that tone. This synchronicity inspires us to ask ourselves, “What kind of music am I making?”

When we are not listening to our song, we tend to live in limited possibilities, seeing the world only through the popular myths that have been dispensed to us. The songs of our culture surround us: the songs of materialism and possessiveness that say worldly goods lead to happiness. Whenever we fixate on a particular note, we suffer. When we try to repeat this one note, which we heard in the past, we lose our true sense of life as an opening, a flowering, an unfolding, and adventure.

As we mature on our path of awakening, countless possibilities open up to us. The magic and enchantment of diversity come alive in a new way. Our thinking and feelings open to an expanded vision. We experience more deeply both the beauty and the sorrow of life; we can see with new eyes and hear the whole great song of life. When we listen deeply, it moves through each of our lives.

Ultimately, we learn to see outside the one-note view of personal identity, of culture and religion. We learn to experience more directly the great mystery of life, the great music of our song.

10-26-2005

Writing continued to be a form of “escape” for me. It takes me far beyond the “walls” of this prison. Each time I write an essay, I have to remind myself that I don’t write an essay by writing an essay. I write it by putting down sentence after sentence, good sentences and bad sentences, handsome sentences and homely sentences. If the words are alive, my paragraphs don’t need to show up wearing expensive suits and ties of Italian silk. Sometimes it helps to remember the poet William Safford’s advice: “If you don’t like what you write, lower your standards.” And then there is always Edward Albey’s comment on critics: “A critic is to an author as a fungus to an oak tree.”

Enclosed is a copy of my latest essay for you to use if you wish – “Singing Our Song.” Music has always been a big part of my life and I hope to someday be able to express the music that is within me.

The essay begins with a quote from Jane Goodall. I so admire her work with the gorillas and the animals that are becoming extinct. Her photo appeared in an issue of National Geographic that I was reading – skin wrinkled from endless hours outdoors, eyes alight with warmth and keen intelligence, and silvery hair pulled back into a no-nonsense ponytail.

I feel like sending copies of her photo to all those expensive, high-toned cosmetic companies along with notes saying: “Hey, guys…this is what real beauty looks like! Quite spending your massive resources on that which is artificial and start channeling it into things that really matter.”

And thinking of things that really matter, I find it helpful to continually look to see who I currently think I am and what I presently think my life is all about. Then I quietly remind myself of the truth. Life is about love, compassion, and service. Nothing else is real; nothing else lasts.

Life's Ironies

by Charles “Tom” Brown

Copyright 2005

Sometimes life’s wake-up calls are the equivalent of being hit by a two-by-four. In my case, a long prison sentence has served this purpose. It’s the ultimate irony that I had to lose everything to find out what real wealth is, and I had to come to prison to learn how to be free.

Life’s cycles with its twists and turns often make it seem like we’re living many lifetimes within this one. Each step of the way, though, builds on the one before it. When nothing appears to help, I think of the stone cutter hammering away at a rock perhaps a hundred times without as much as a crack showing on it. Yet at the hundred and first blow, it splits in two. I know it was not that blow that did it, but the hundred that had gone before as well.

What we experience as ironies and paradoxes are, from a higher standpoint, the joyful play of Consciousness. The existence of this world with its endless multiplicity, its ceaseless variety, its wonder and beauty, is dependent on fundamental differences. After all, a world without these varying seasons would be intolerably dull; the mill of life requires some grist.

Life’s ironies are the result of continual changes taking place, and they can feel like a blessing or a curse, depending on our desires; the same rain welcomed by the flowers is mourned by picnickers wishing for a sunny day.

Doors open and close, energies rise and fall, and we are challenged to align our lives with the cycles of time and embrace each season for its own gifts. Each of us, in our own way, in our own time, is learning to open to the timeless unfolding of all the seasons of life.

George Washington Carver eloquently expressed this when he wrote, “How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and the strong because someday in life you will have been all of these.”

The Call

By Charles “Tom” Brown

Copyright 2005

Following our call may mean leaving our past behind us and walking through our fear to the unknown. To walk on despite all the pleas for us to come back is to know we are free from the clutches of guilt. When we are free from guilt and fear, love blooms – love of the truth. Now we will say what we have to say and do what we have to do; not out of anger, nor irresponsibility, but simply because we must.

The truth upsets things, brings down branches that were rotten on the tree, and dislodges stones whose foundations were already shaky. It sorts out the wheat from the chaff in our lives.

So when the wildness courses through our veins, we have no option but to leave conventional wisdom behind and head for the source – for the source of some holy river, the summit of a mountain, perhaps, but always to the source that is in the innermost heart. The door for this journey opens inward as well as outward, and the inner terrain is often more rugged than any outer wilderness.

We cannot plan for this sort of journey because the entire undertaking relies on the unreasonableness of faith. Faith is unreasonable because it rests on no tangible evidence. It is the faith in the truth that can burn through the mists of confusion, uncertainty, fear, and leave us revealed to ourselves, to a new voice that was in us all along.

This is the birth of a new self, one not conditioned by the past. This is the self who slips through the cracks of the ordinary mind when the sentry is looking the other way. If there is one word that can describe its voice, it’s the word AUTHENTIC. It will carry our own true taste, free of the flavor of anyone else.

In being true to that small voice within, we are being of service to others and to the world in the most profound way possible. We cannot know where that voice will take us, but we are affirming one of the deepest and most sobering truths of all: no one else can ever walk our journey for us. We alone can respond to our call.

Moments of Grace

By Charles “Tom” Brown

Copyright 2005

Having spent a lifetime living in the forest, abusing and killing the forest animals, the old man now lay dying in a clearing. The day had finally come when he could move no further. As he lay there, too weak to even move his head, his faithful dog, the one he had often abused and neglected, cautiously came over to him and rested his head on the old man’s arm. In that moment he understood grace. And so he died, no longer feeling angry, but simply being in that moment, a moment of grace.

Grace does not have to be earned. It comes to all alike, simply a wonderful facet of divine activity. It is an assurance, an explanation of why things are never quite hopeless, and why we seldom receive the full harvest of the error we sow, and why we receive a little more good than we sow.

There is an upward pull of the universe, ever seeking to lift us to the heights of our divine nature. It is as real and as relentless as the force of gravity. It is a way of living in an awareness of the divine flow. Our experience of it changes with our consciousness.

In being aware of ordinary moments of grace let’s notice that unexpected phone call from an old friend, the signal lights that are green as we drive to work, being in the fastest line at the grocery store, that good sing-along song on the radio, and the keys being right where we left them.

In providing everyday grace to others, ordinary acts of kindness become the normal way of doing things. Choosing to love as a matter of course incorporates hope, forgiveness, and miracles into the fabric of our being, and we step into life with a peace and calmness. No noises, no brass bands, no fanfares – just the effortless stance of one whose grace cannot fail to be recognized.

Grace comes from an examination of our life in which we realize that we don’t deserve what we’re getting; yet we’re getting it anyway. It’s the difference between seeing life as an entitlement and seeing it as a gift.

Christmas and New Years Message From Tom

Like me, you probably have sung Amazing Grace many times, and now in this holiday season, we are more aware than ever of God’s grace. The word “grace” may take on a deeper meaning for you as you read “Moments of Grace”.

Especially at this special time, may our world become a little smaller, our hearts a little larger, our smiles a little wider, and our love a little deeper.

Wishing you a joyful, loving holiday season and New Year!