“…I finally hit bottom, my consciousness peppered with thoughts of suicide. Then, on a lovely tropical morning, after a drunken and debauched night with a woman whose husband was out of town, I` was sluggishly lumbering through the International Market Place on my way to the Post Office, the pavement glistening from a light morning shower, the sun playing hide and seek with big billowy clouds as the plumerias sprayed their erotic fragrance and gentle trade winds rattled the palm fronds. I noticed a jaunty old man, a vacationer or pensioner come to Hawaii to idly pass the sunset years, appropriately attired in Bermuda shorts, aloha shirt, tennies and a straw hat, perusing his mail as he ambled my way. As he got closer I realized we were on a collision course and sent a message to my feet to move left, but nothing happened! Panic stricken, I tried to move out of the way a second time but the body wouldn’t respond! I had completely lost control.
A couple of seconds before impact the bodies stopped face to face and I heard a sweet voice speaking through me. "Excuse me, sir, may I ask you a question?" it said. Someone else had taken over! Since I had no idea what the voice was about to say, I tried to apologize but the words wouldn’t come. I wasn’t connected at the mouth either! The old man looked up, unaware of my distress, a kind smile on his wrinkled face. "Yeah, sure, sonny, shoot." Then the voice, flowing like nectar from a deep place within, resumed, "Out of curiosity, sir, how old do you think I am?" Since I already knew the answer and didn’t have the slightest interest in the opinion of the doddering old codger, I was completely flabbergasted.
Certain that I was going mad, I ran frantically around inside my mind looking for the control panel but reality, which had a mind of its own, was completely uninterested. The old man stepped back, pulled on his pipe, gave me the once-over, and judiciously replied, "Well, sonny, I'd say you're forty-three." A long history of untruth meant I could spot a lie a mile away; he was deliberately underestimating my age to spare my feelings. "Well, yes, thank you very much," the voice said sweetly. "Don't mention it, sonny," he said, proceeding on his way.
I seriously considered the possibility I was losing my mind, but the experience was permeated with such a sense of clarity, I didn’t indulge my fear. And then I regained control and proceeded toward my mailbox, the mind settling on the concerns of the day. But as I entered the foyer I lost it again! Instead of proceeding into the Post Office proper as programmed, the body confidently turned left, entered the men's room and parked itself in front of a big mirror over the wash basins, eyes glued straight ahead, feet welded to the floor. "Oh no, not again! Am I flipping out?" I thought anxiously.
But I wasn’t going mad. I was having a good look, courtesy of God, at what I had become. I don’t know how long I stood there, unable to move a muscle - perhaps a full five minutes - aware but unaware of the stares of the men coming and going, the flushing toilets and the irritating flicker of the neon light over the mirror. But it didn’t matter because a brand new world had miraculously opened up, an inner world illumined by a powerful light in whose presence I saw every last bit of the sin and corruption that I was. The moment of truth in the post office lifted a monstrous weight, like Saul on the road to Damascus. Though I still looked a wreck, overweight and run-down, my face etched with deep pain lines, I felt young again, inspired by the conviction that I might find an exit from my dark labyrinth. And for the first time in my twenty-six years I realized there was a compassionate God.”
~ James Swartz was born in Butte, Montana in 1941. He grew up in Lewiston, Idaho; at 17, he left for a military prep school in Minnesota. He spent two years in a liberal arts college in Wisconscin, and then attended University of California at Berkeley in '63. Six months short of graduation he ran off to Hawaii with a married woman, to start a successful business. The principal influences on his teaching have been Swami Chinmayananda, Swami Abhedananda and Swami Dayananda.
Photo ~ In 2011, James Swartz married Isabella Viglietti whose spiritual name is Sundari. Sundari is a Sanskrit word the means "the Beauty that make beauty beautiful."
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