Beyond The Wall

Finding the Gold

by Charles “Tom” Brown

Copyright 2006

Some common remarks around the prison yard are…

“I can’t wait to get out of here!”

“When my sentence is up, I’ll be free and can get on with my life.”

With thoughts like these, the gold is always just out of reach, as illusory as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. My reality, and that of my fellow inmates, is that we are in prison. The incessant desire for my life to be different can easily capture me and hold me in another type of prison. I can easily miss out on the beauty and perfection of this moment which is the only life I actually have.

The choice that all of us have, no matter where we find ourselves, is the choice of how we are going to experience each day. The first step in making this choice is to accept and embrace the reality of the present moment. As Byron Katie writes in her book, Loving What Is, “When I argue with reality, I lose – but only 100 percent of the time.”

I once read about the philosopher’s stone and thought it a noble quest to try to take simple iron and find a way to turn it into gold. I understood it as a metaphor for the purpose of searching for an alchemy that would turn the iron of the world into gold, not the bullion of wealth, but the essence that is worth preserving. After years of being buffeted into the beauty of things as they are, I now understand that the iron is already gold. It is about understanding that the gold is already in everything and we discover that when we immerse ourselves directly into things as they are.

Our problem is that we do not show up fully for life, and then wonder why life is not showing up more fully for us. The time for showing up fully for life is right now, whatever the circumstances.  Life is a swirling pool of infinite potential at every single moment, and it all goes back to a devotion to things as they are. For therein lies the gold.

10/22/06

Enclosed is my latest essay, “Finding the Gold”. We may spend our entire lives seeking the gold, seeking something that is inside us and could be found if we would only stop and deepen our attention. But distracted, we often spend our life on the way to somewhere else. Swami Muktananda eloquently summed this up when he wrote, “When you get to the end of your spiritual practices, you will realize that everything you were looking for was already inside yourself. So why not start out by meditating with that understanding and saving yourself all the trouble.”

Ralphie read “Finding the Gold” and made up a sign that says what it means to him. In spite of his bad puns, he has a way of cutting through all the “stuff” and boiling it all down to a couple of words. Here he is – marching around with his sign…. (picture of cartoon dog holding a sign that says BEGIN WITHIN). We can’t get it much simpler than that, can we?

Message from the Editor

If you would like to send a donation to Tom so that he can buy stamps, paper, and pens - they are always appreciated. He can only receive money orders, and the address must be specific:

Charles "Tom" Brown, #140237, Barchey Blue - D2-E5, P.O. Box 3200, Buckeye, AZ 85326

....and by all means, if you would like to write to him, please do. He is a wonderful correspondent, and meeting new friends is a Godsend to him during these years of imprisonment. It's my idea about the donations - not his, so feel free to write regardless.

Thank you!

Kathleen, Editor

The Inner Light

by Charles “Tom” Brown

Copyright 2006

Recent research has shown that if I were to take a needle and stick my finger, there is a certain part of my brain that lights up. The pain would register in a certain part of the brain. But here is what is interesting; if I did that and somebody was watching, the same part of their brain would light up. Not only mine, but their brain would light up, too, in the same spot.

What some have concluded from this experiment is that on some level, the brain cannot make the distinction between ourselves and somebody else. That is the you in me and the me in you.

When we become one with what we see, this oneness is called Love, an urge to be touched by something timeless and fresh. It is when we are aware that we are at one with all of life that we are rewarded beyond attachment and ownership.

When our spirit is touched with this, we light up until all we know melts and changes shape. In such moments the singer becomes the song, the dancer melts into the dance, and the love melts into the act of love, until in a burst of oneness, singer, dancer, and lover are one.

Perhaps this is why, in the fullest moments of loving and being, we go nameless and timeless and breathless – everything about us is used up, like a candle, burned over and over, just to light entire rooms with our flicker.