An
excerpt from
Stepping Off the Edge: Learning & Living Spiritual
Practice
CHAPTER
1
STEPPING
OFF
THEY
FOUND CANCER ON ONE SIDE, but they got it in time. Then
it showed up on the other side. Your child was stricken
with a disease so disturbing that some people still won't
look you in the eye. You've battled drugs and alcohol
and the results of what your fellow human beings did to
you. You never talk about your life: If people heard the
outlines, they'd laugh. They'd call you a victim or a
tragedy queen. But you have lived every minute of it,
and no one knows how hard it's been. You have done everything
to change how things are, but still the pain continues:
illness, trauma, loss, despair.
Or
perhaps your story takes a different turn: Born to success
and all the right schools, you decide it's time to make
it big. For the last seven years, you've worked harder
than you knew a person could; no vacations, not even a
day off. Not once, but dozens of times, you've awakened
at your desk to find yourself blinking in the morning
sun. Hobbies, friends and family are memories from a past
life. You've given it every dime you have, and signed
a stack of notes at the bank. You know you will succeed––you
have never failed.
The
start-up fails. You're so bankrupt that you can't even
cry. The Feds are hounding you for taxes.
You
find yourself speaking into silence, "Why? Why me?
Why at all?"
No
answer.
On
the other hand, some lives unfold like they'd been touched
by a genie. From the kick off to the final play, everything
works. In elementary school, your science project wins
the Grand Prize. Sailing through grade after grade, you
captain every team. After serving your country with honor,
you come home and start the business. Sure, you work hard
and long, but success arrives like a flood. Years pass
with champagne and congratulations and another round of
applause.
Until
one day, you look around. Your husband or wife has passed
on; the kids are gone. Younger people run your business.
Something lurks out there, a terrifying mystery. You're
sliding toward it with no brakes. Questions keep coming:
What did I accomplish? Was it worth it? Should I have
done more?
You
gaze into space and your reflection looks back, a hollow
ghost.
What
do you do when life gives you everything you want? What
do you do when you get the crud on the bottom? What do
you do when living in a human body hurts too much?
You
do your life.
"You
do your life?" You may want to scream. "What
do you mean, do your life? I just told you about my life.
It's a mess. I'm miserable. Why would I want to do my
life? Other lives are much better. You can see them
everywhere––on TV and in the movies. Some people
have skinny butts and six-pack abs. Some people have great
jobs and lots of money. Some people don't have my wife.
Or her mother. I buy this book for help, and you tell
me to do my life?
"I'm
sorry. That's the most useful thing I can say to you and
the only thing you can do––your life.
That's the message of this book:
Your
life is your spiritual path.
It's
also the ultimate truth. You life, as you complete the
breath you're on right now, wherever you are, is it
for you. You can't do anyone else's life, all you
can do is imitate a picture your mind got from somewhere
and act it out.
Live
your life or be a fake. If you copy someone else's life
because it photographs better, you'll destroy the one
change you have at real happiness: your life. Brutal,
I know. The alternative is worse:
Women
with faces stretched like drumheads sport butterscotch
hair and fingernails curled like beetles' backs. Puffed
up men wear muscles as camouflage. Kids with moused spikes,
pierced and tattooed head to heel, wag tongues with silver
barbells. Guys in suits move so fast you think they're
on speed. They're not: They're in the fast lane, making
something of themselves.
If
you look into the eyes of the people I described, people
we all know, you can see who they are: living souls, the
most valuable entities on the planet. Living souls longing
to emerge and express themselves, souls that have always
been perfect and know it to some degree. These are souls
that weren't strong enough to battle the world's imperatives: You must be thin; you must be rich; you must act like
this.
The
spiritual path is the process of the soul reclaiming its
dominion over the world's programming. Living this process
feels like a battle to the death, because it is: Parts
of the personality will die as other are born. The person
being born and dying will feel it all.
A
note from Sandy Nathan: This is the first section
of Chapter One. It's not all so hard hitting: Some of
the book is hysterically funny; and some isn't.
AUTHOR SANDY NATHAN IS THE WINNER OF EIGHT NATIONAL AWARDS!
SANDY NATHAN
Click to go to sandynathan.com
IT'S OUT! New from SANDY NATHAN!
Sandy Nathan's NEW book NUMENON has WON TWO NATIONAL AWARDS before publication!
Click here to hear Sandy speak on Fascinating Authors.
Copyright
2008. Sandy Nathan. All rights reserved.
If you look into the e |
