Part I: The Dream of the Charyngas
Namaste (Na-Ma-Stay)– from the Sanskrit language means something like “I celebrate the place of being within us where we are one.”
It is late afternoon, and I am walking through Buchanan, Michigan, the hometown of my childhood. I have walked up Front St. hill and am waiting at a bus stop across from and looking at the Swem Funeral Home which sits in ochre judgement over the late 19th-century houses and the New Lutheran church lining the old residential section of the town’s main drag, between Moccasin Avenue and Detroit Street.
As the bus pulls to a stop in from of me, I see that it’s actually a modified twelve-passenger van, decorated not in maroon and white (the town colors), but in maize and blue- the colors of Ann Arbor, the hometown of my adulthood- I also see that a University of Michigan logo water-marks the vehicle’s windshield. The old-style suicide door opens and I climb aboard. I have no idea where this bus will take me, nor do I care who is driving. I sit down and look around.
The seats are grey, and seem new. There are several passengers and I recognize one in particular. She is slim and young, dark-haired, possessed of a brilliant smile, about fifteen, a lovely girl- she radiates sweetness. I tell her that I think I know her but can’t remember her name. She tells me her name is Natasha, and it strikes a faint memory someplace. I feel comfortable and relax into my seat, enjoying the scenery and the energy of Natasha and the other riders- the vibe is palpable and warm, like the pre-fall weather.
I drowse, taken down somewhere near sleep within this dream by the vision of colors moving past my window, and the inertial twist and mild lurch of a small bus about it’s business.
After a time I feel some confusion, I am not sure where I am, nor how long I have been riding this bus. I look around and notice that new riders have boarded the bus, some who had been there when I boarded have left. A young woman, with long kinky blonde hair, wearing off-white slacks and a green pullover is standing across the aisle just behind me. She is preparing to sit down and, noticing me, smiles. I ask her if she’s from around here and she says, yes, and tells me her name is Brit. She is a friend of my best friends’ daughter, I have met her before, and I watch her as she arranges her things and gets comfortable- the bus moves along it’s route, and I listen to and watch nothing in particular.
I begin to look out of the window again, trying to determine where the bus has taken me, and realize we are headed north and east out of town, through the Kayuga and Chippewa neighborhoods. Shortly I realize have looped around through the hilly country outside town, and are now on Redbud Trail, heading south along the St. Joseph river back into the Buchanan township proper. Without any seemly reason, the bus slows to a stop- and, although the engine is at idle, begins to bump and drift in a strange way. I can see the scenery to my left; trees and river and built-up brush, shifting diagonally toward the rear and roof of the bus. The daylight deepens into the gloaming of new evening in trees, and I feel the end of the day creeping eastward from the bluff-obscured horizon to my right.. The sound of the engine picks up, and the inertia of applied force presses me gently toward the back of my seat. I look out the back window to gain some understanding of where I’ve just been.
I see a steep hill girdled by a tram-like structure. Atop the tram I see the form of a middle-aged woman operating a bicycle-like mechanism that sends a bus-sized palate back up to the summit of the hill. I also notice a neat, but oddly narrow dirt road circumscribing the landward side of the hill, winding around and up into the dense brush. I realize then that the bumping and drifting of the bus was a function of riding the tram down the face of the hill. Shortly after the descent of the hill, the bus pulls into an almost circular canyon, which appears to have been dynamited into the 80-foot high river bluff on the right side of the river road.
I get off the bus, walk across a small parking lot, and enter a large and very old block building. The dark paneling and the soft light from wall-mounted incandescent sconces, the tile floor, and the square tables give me an impression of a café and a library. I am not sure why I came here, I know there is a class forming, and know that I have not signed up for it, and have a strong feeling that I am supposed to be here. I find a chair at a well-lit table and sit down.
A couple of people come in and sit at the table I have chosen. Both are male and in their twenties, dark-haired and pleasant. I have some conversation with them that I cannot remember. Shortly a woman comes into the room carrying what appears to be a stack of menus. She places several on the table at which I sit, and moves on to do the same at other tables scattered about the room. I now see the other tables are occupied by mostly young men and women. I take one of the menus and begin to examine it.
I am taken with the green patterns decorating the laminated and folded eleven by seventeen inch sheets. The patterns are all in greens; swirls of forest enfold summer grass and emerald- the borders are of hunter and some color approaching teal. There are no straight lines anywhere that I can determine. The patterns and colors draw my eye to their centers, and cause my attention to wander out and around, never quite reaching the edges, and back again, in a round-about way to the center.
Opening the beautiful folded sheet, I am delighted to see more patterns. These are more angular, blocky and mazelike- they remind me of Islamic art I have seen, and I know what they are. I reach out and take another from the scattered pile on the table. One of the guys sitting with me wonders aloud what they are. I tell him they are “charyngas”, which I know, thought I’ve never heard the word, to be an old Aryan name for a meditation-training device. I tell him that some of the patterns are used to defocus the attention from the mundane world, while others help to structure and focus consciousness. I explain that, to use them properly, one should randomly scan the patterns while not focusing or identifying any individual part of the whole. They are large enough to take up the entire field of vision when unfolded.
We take turns randomly perusing the charyngas and passing them around, spending about 10 seconds on each one. Then, the woman who had handed out the folded patterns, comes to the center of the room and begins to speak.
I turn my attention to her and only need to look up slightly to meet her eyes. She is beautiful; she is somewhere around five feet three inches tall and her long dark hair and pale skin seem to be lit from within. Her body is voluptuous and strong. Her nose is long and her dark eyes seem to define depth itself. She is wearing a black crew-neck top with cuffs pushed up to her elbows and a black skirt with patterns in ash and dull silver that remind me of the designs on the outer side of the charyngas. From a silver necklace hangs a small crystal sphere, which rests on the black cloth of her top, just between her breasts.
She tells us that this is a meditation class and that she is happy to see so many here. She tells us that we are welcome to continue examining and passing around the Charyngas while she talks about why we are here. She speaks of the history and practices of different forms of meditation. She outlines benefits to meditating, both individual and global- she is quiet, articulate, and impassioned concerning her material. The people sitting all around the dim warm room are relaxed and interested, even connected in purpose and focus. After a period of time that seemed to be about three quarters of an hour she asked us to find and sit unmoving in a comfortable position on our chairs, relax our bodies, and clear our minds of all internal dialogue. She tells us that we should be calm and quiet within ourselves and breathe evenly and slowly, and just be open to whatever comes.
I close my eyes and go through my accustomed series of relaxation steps, allowing my muscles to relax in groups starting at the top of my body and working my way down and in from the periphery towards the center of my body, and again, back out from the center. Soon, I am relaxed and quiet. I feel the inside of myself grow beyond the walls of the building, and I feel connected and empty. Thoughts pass by and through me, some of them do not seem to be mine, and I seem to watch them move like cloudscapes in a sunset sky.
After a while I realize that she is moving about the room, observing the class. I have no idea what she is looking for, I assume she is moving to provide us with some kind of focus that will keep our internal and external attentions balanced, and to better see and feel the level of relaxation and focus of each student. I feel happy here, now. I have no conscious thoughts. I hear her move and see traces of the charyngas patterns behind my eyelids.
As time passes, I begin to feel a pressure inside myself. All through me it moves like liquid or heat trying to find a path to follow. Up and up it presses until my head, my entire being feels ready to burst with it. I feel her then, standing in front of me. And I see her through my closed eyelids, bent slightly forward, hands folded, looking directly into the center of my forehead, her lips slightly parted and she is touching me inside.
I am momentarily confused. I want to respond, but am not sure how I can respond. I realize that all I need do is let go. I feel the pressure and let the liquid heat flow from me- from everywhere at once. I burst from within myself like light from a star. I have a feeling of triumph, elation, like I am showing her something I’ve never been able to show anyone before, showing myself something that I don’t understand, simultaneously the teacher and the student.
In a conversational tone of voice, though a little breathy and at a slightly higher pitch than I have yet heard from her I hear her say, slowly, clearly… “Namaste… Namaste… Namaste…” I hear this word, and I simultaneously hear her saying, “My God, he is open, he is with me, he is really here, I am with him, we are one.” I feel embarrassed for a moment, wondering what I have done, feeling I have tricked her, feeling I am now to be a spectacle of ridicule, but I do not open my eyes or let go of what I know is happening. I realize that she has not made a sound, that the words were inside me, but I have no doubt of their origin. The self-doubt melts because I know that it serves me no more. I open my eyes and gaze into hers.
Light! Her eyes are filled with infinite light. It does not hurt to look into her, and I know that I am seeing in her exactly what is happening within me. I smile, not at her beauty or at the spectacle of the Light, but at the knowing that comes upon me that she sees in me what I am seeing in her, and we are truly one. I feel wanted, immediately and eternally wanted, in every physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychological sense I can point to with my mind- she is mother, sister, lover, and self. And I wake with the afterimage of the light still on my retinas, knowing I have been shown the true meaning beyond words of Namaste.
I awake knowing that I must not forget what I saw. Even though the details are gone. What I have described here is only the surface of the dream, there are interstices of knowledge that couldn’t make it down to the level of consciousness that I am exercising as I write this, but the feeling burns within me still, as does the faintest glimmer of that Light.
Part II will be entitled "...And What Came After."
It is late afternoon, and I am walking through Buchanan, Michigan, the hometown of my childhood. I have walked up Front St. hill and am waiting at a bus stop across from and looking at the Swem Funeral Home which sits in ochre judgement over the late 19th-century houses and the New Lutheran church lining the old residential section of the town’s main drag, between Moccasin Avenue and Detroit Street.
As the bus pulls to a stop in from of me, I see that it’s actually a modified twelve-passenger van, decorated not in maroon and white (the town colors), but in maize and blue- the colors of Ann Arbor, the hometown of my adulthood- I also see that a University of Michigan logo water-marks the vehicle’s windshield. The old-style suicide door opens and I climb aboard. I have no idea where this bus will take me, nor do I care who is driving. I sit down and look around.
The seats are grey, and seem new. There are several passengers and I recognize one in particular. She is slim and young, dark-haired, possessed of a brilliant smile, about fifteen, a lovely girl- she radiates sweetness. I tell her that I think I know her but can’t remember her name. She tells me her name is Natasha, and it strikes a faint memory someplace. I feel comfortable and relax into my seat, enjoying the scenery and the energy of Natasha and the other riders- the vibe is palpable and warm, like the pre-fall weather.
I drowse, taken down somewhere near sleep within this dream by the vision of colors moving past my window, and the inertial twist and mild lurch of a small bus about it’s business.
After a time I feel some confusion, I am not sure where I am, nor how long I have been riding this bus. I look around and notice that new riders have boarded the bus, some who had been there when I boarded have left. A young woman, with long kinky blonde hair, wearing off-white slacks and a green pullover is standing across the aisle just behind me. She is preparing to sit down and, noticing me, smiles. I ask her if she’s from around here and she says, yes, and tells me her name is Brit. She is a friend of my best friends’ daughter, I have met her before, and I watch her as she arranges her things and gets comfortable- the bus moves along it’s route, and I listen to and watch nothing in particular.
I begin to look out of the window again, trying to determine where the bus has taken me, and realize we are headed north and east out of town, through the Kayuga and Chippewa neighborhoods. Shortly I realize have looped around through the hilly country outside town, and are now on Redbud Trail, heading south along the St. Joseph river back into the Buchanan township proper. Without any seemly reason, the bus slows to a stop- and, although the engine is at idle, begins to bump and drift in a strange way. I can see the scenery to my left; trees and river and built-up brush, shifting diagonally toward the rear and roof of the bus. The daylight deepens into the gloaming of new evening in trees, and I feel the end of the day creeping eastward from the bluff-obscured horizon to my right.. The sound of the engine picks up, and the inertia of applied force presses me gently toward the back of my seat. I look out the back window to gain some understanding of where I’ve just been.
I see a steep hill girdled by a tram-like structure. Atop the tram I see the form of a middle-aged woman operating a bicycle-like mechanism that sends a bus-sized palate back up to the summit of the hill. I also notice a neat, but oddly narrow dirt road circumscribing the landward side of the hill, winding around and up into the dense brush. I realize then that the bumping and drifting of the bus was a function of riding the tram down the face of the hill. Shortly after the descent of the hill, the bus pulls into an almost circular canyon, which appears to have been dynamited into the 80-foot high river bluff on the right side of the river road.
I get off the bus, walk across a small parking lot, and enter a large and very old block building. The dark paneling and the soft light from wall-mounted incandescent sconces, the tile floor, and the square tables give me an impression of a café and a library. I am not sure why I came here, I know there is a class forming, and know that I have not signed up for it, and have a strong feeling that I am supposed to be here. I find a chair at a well-lit table and sit down.
A couple of people come in and sit at the table I have chosen. Both are male and in their twenties, dark-haired and pleasant. I have some conversation with them that I cannot remember. Shortly a woman comes into the room carrying what appears to be a stack of menus. She places several on the table at which I sit, and moves on to do the same at other tables scattered about the room. I now see the other tables are occupied by mostly young men and women. I take one of the menus and begin to examine it.
I am taken with the green patterns decorating the laminated and folded eleven by seventeen inch sheets. The patterns are all in greens; swirls of forest enfold summer grass and emerald- the borders are of hunter and some color approaching teal. There are no straight lines anywhere that I can determine. The patterns and colors draw my eye to their centers, and cause my attention to wander out and around, never quite reaching the edges, and back again, in a round-about way to the center.
Opening the beautiful folded sheet, I am delighted to see more patterns. These are more angular, blocky and mazelike- they remind me of Islamic art I have seen, and I know what they are. I reach out and take another from the scattered pile on the table. One of the guys sitting with me wonders aloud what they are. I tell him they are “charyngas”, which I know, thought I’ve never heard the word, to be an old Aryan name for a meditation-training device. I tell him that some of the patterns are used to defocus the attention from the mundane world, while others help to structure and focus consciousness. I explain that, to use them properly, one should randomly scan the patterns while not focusing or identifying any individual part of the whole. They are large enough to take up the entire field of vision when unfolded.
We take turns randomly perusing the charyngas and passing them around, spending about 10 seconds on each one. Then, the woman who had handed out the folded patterns, comes to the center of the room and begins to speak.
I turn my attention to her and only need to look up slightly to meet her eyes. She is beautiful; she is somewhere around five feet three inches tall and her long dark hair and pale skin seem to be lit from within. Her body is voluptuous and strong. Her nose is long and her dark eyes seem to define depth itself. She is wearing a black crew-neck top with cuffs pushed up to her elbows and a black skirt with patterns in ash and dull silver that remind me of the designs on the outer side of the charyngas. From a silver necklace hangs a small crystal sphere, which rests on the black cloth of her top, just between her breasts.
She tells us that this is a meditation class and that she is happy to see so many here. She tells us that we are welcome to continue examining and passing around the Charyngas while she talks about why we are here. She speaks of the history and practices of different forms of meditation. She outlines benefits to meditating, both individual and global- she is quiet, articulate, and impassioned concerning her material. The people sitting all around the dim warm room are relaxed and interested, even connected in purpose and focus. After a period of time that seemed to be about three quarters of an hour she asked us to find and sit unmoving in a comfortable position on our chairs, relax our bodies, and clear our minds of all internal dialogue. She tells us that we should be calm and quiet within ourselves and breathe evenly and slowly, and just be open to whatever comes.
I close my eyes and go through my accustomed series of relaxation steps, allowing my muscles to relax in groups starting at the top of my body and working my way down and in from the periphery towards the center of my body, and again, back out from the center. Soon, I am relaxed and quiet. I feel the inside of myself grow beyond the walls of the building, and I feel connected and empty. Thoughts pass by and through me, some of them do not seem to be mine, and I seem to watch them move like cloudscapes in a sunset sky.
After a while I realize that she is moving about the room, observing the class. I have no idea what she is looking for, I assume she is moving to provide us with some kind of focus that will keep our internal and external attentions balanced, and to better see and feel the level of relaxation and focus of each student. I feel happy here, now. I have no conscious thoughts. I hear her move and see traces of the charyngas patterns behind my eyelids.
As time passes, I begin to feel a pressure inside myself. All through me it moves like liquid or heat trying to find a path to follow. Up and up it presses until my head, my entire being feels ready to burst with it. I feel her then, standing in front of me. And I see her through my closed eyelids, bent slightly forward, hands folded, looking directly into the center of my forehead, her lips slightly parted and she is touching me inside.
I am momentarily confused. I want to respond, but am not sure how I can respond. I realize that all I need do is let go. I feel the pressure and let the liquid heat flow from me- from everywhere at once. I burst from within myself like light from a star. I have a feeling of triumph, elation, like I am showing her something I’ve never been able to show anyone before, showing myself something that I don’t understand, simultaneously the teacher and the student.
In a conversational tone of voice, though a little breathy and at a slightly higher pitch than I have yet heard from her I hear her say, slowly, clearly… “Namaste… Namaste… Namaste…” I hear this word, and I simultaneously hear her saying, “My God, he is open, he is with me, he is really here, I am with him, we are one.” I feel embarrassed for a moment, wondering what I have done, feeling I have tricked her, feeling I am now to be a spectacle of ridicule, but I do not open my eyes or let go of what I know is happening. I realize that she has not made a sound, that the words were inside me, but I have no doubt of their origin. The self-doubt melts because I know that it serves me no more. I open my eyes and gaze into hers.
Light! Her eyes are filled with infinite light. It does not hurt to look into her, and I know that I am seeing in her exactly what is happening within me. I smile, not at her beauty or at the spectacle of the Light, but at the knowing that comes upon me that she sees in me what I am seeing in her, and we are truly one. I feel wanted, immediately and eternally wanted, in every physical, spiritual, emotional, and psychological sense I can point to with my mind- she is mother, sister, lover, and self. And I wake with the afterimage of the light still on my retinas, knowing I have been shown the true meaning beyond words of Namaste.
I awake knowing that I must not forget what I saw. Even though the details are gone. What I have described here is only the surface of the dream, there are interstices of knowledge that couldn’t make it down to the level of consciousness that I am exercising as I write this, but the feeling burns within me still, as does the faintest glimmer of that Light.
Part II will be entitled "...And What Came After."
posted by b at 2:58 PM
6 Comments:
Wow, Brandon. What an experience. My words can add nothing, but I wanted to let you know I was here. I'll be thinking about this.
Namaste.
damn brandon! that is an awesome transition! it takes so much to let go into that space and not be jolted out by someone sharing it with you. that is strength, and character in spirit!
was this really a dream? Did you wake up feeling refreshed, and looking for the dark haired woman with the eyes of light?
anticipating the second half. THANK YOU.
;-)
I thought you had a dream at first but I knew it was a different kind of journey. Namaste!
pretty amazing b. I'd like to learn how to do that :)
Are charyngas real? I'd like to see one if they are.
Ever since I started meditating to that Wayne Dyer CD, I've been having some really strange dreams. They seem more real than any that I've ever had
tiem for dance
It is so hard to translate dreams into anything as concrete and inflexible as words. Bravo!
....and what came after ?
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