And What Do You Want?

I sat knee to knee facing a lovely young man in a gorgeous living room in the Malibu hills. White walls, white furniture, billowy curtains over polished yoga studio floors, and big windows that looked out over the ocean—like living in a cloud above everything. It was the kind of place I longed for, where I imagined I would have all the money I could ever need. 

Instead, I recreated the feelings and relationships of my childhood. Boyfriends became the father with a thousand faces, and roommates became versions of my mother. A guesthouse I rented became the battleground of my past when the front house exploded in domestic violence, and I crouched behind my walls, frozen. And there I was, a thirty-five-year-old teenager. 

How does one stop recreating the past?  

I’d had several peek experiences - glimpses - while isolated on retreat, but the insights never survived reentry. When I picked up the reins of my life, there was still the work. Always more work. At this point, I’d spent years in various workshops - in the quest to heal mind and spirit. But the circumstances of my childhood trauma inevitably reformed around me in my relationships, my home, and my job.

My workshop partner had silky black hair down his back and deep dark eyes. Beautiful. He almost glowed. He told me his name was Ramana.

“Like the Indian saint?” I asked.

He nodded and smiled but didn’t explain. I liked him. I could feel Ramana breathing, and I matched my in-breath to his.

“Look into the eyes,” the workshop leader instructed. “Look into and past.” I swallowed awkwardly and picked at some imaginary fuzz on my shirt. A hand rested on my shoulder, but his voice addressed the room. “Don’t break eye contact. Don’t smile.” I tried again. “Look past the body, the personality, the circumstance of being here in this room. Look into the mirror. Breathe as one.”

My awareness narrowed to a pinpoint, into and beyond this beautiful man before me. His face blurred in a halo of soft focus. Only his eyes were sharp. And they were so clear—unwavering, undemanding, unselfconscious—simply there. 

The facilitator said, “Watch the movement of your mind. Don’t pull back in fear. Don’t rush toward out of the need to please. Don’t push against in self-defense. Be still.”

Breathing with Ramana was more intimate than sex - much more. During sex, I had fantasies. Or I dissociated somewhere above my body. Here, there were no stories. I loved him. The love had a sound, a hum like a high-tension wire, growing louder until it peaked like a soprano hitting high C. My outer shell, which was brittle, shattered and fell in a circle around my feet. And I was naked. 

A thousand electric sparks wheeled around my gut. Fear oozed like a bubble in a lava lamp glugging up from the deep. But I wasn’t the fear; I was watching it. I didn’t move. When it swallowed me, it had a stench: I was afraid to die - terrified. If I ran, death would still catch me. There wasn’t any way around that. And I was sad, though sad isn’t a big enough word for that feeling. There isn’t a word that is big enough.

“Don’t move,” the facilitator said. “Stay with what comes up. Watch it pass through. Don’t cling to any story.”

Years before, I had asked a teacher, “But how do I stop attaching to my story?”

“There is no HOW to stopping,” she’d said. “If you are clenching your fist - stop.”

“But,” I’d objected, “ if you don’t know you are clenching…”

She put her hand on my cheek and looked into my eyes. The question vanished. But later, away from her, the question came roaring back. How do I stop?

But that day with Ramana, the story passed without a trace, like a storm through an empty sky. Fat tears rolled down my cheeks, wetting my collar. Moving took effort; not moving was effortless. I almost chuckled at the simplicity. I wasn’t the storm. I was the sky, holding us and looking through my eyes at Ramana’s eyes. I was much larger than my body. My body was breathing, but I wasn’t doing anything.

The facilitator said, “Partner A, ask the questions. “Partner B, speak the truth, whatever that is.”

“What do you want?” Ramana asked.

“Money.”

“And what would that give you?”

“Safety.”

Ramana received my answer and nodded. “And if you had all the safety in the world, what would that give you?” he asked.

“Freedom,” I answered.

“And freedom? What would that give you?”

“Peace.”

“And peace?”

“Joy.”

“And joy?”

When I looked for an answer this time, my mind was a night sky filled with stars. But it was awful, too, cold and dark like deep space. Terror seeped in. Panic. I almost broke away, almost pulled back, nearly reclaimed my story about being a broken girl from a difficult childhood. But just before jumping into I-can’t-do-this, I shattered again. A million shards of story, false self, and defense floated away into space, beyond gravity, nothing holding them in place. And I sobbed. But there was no story, no explanation, no reason - no why. My body cried while I watched. But I had stopped. I wasn’t pulling good things toward me or pushing bad things away.

And I saw. The need was bottomless. The need to get, to get, and to get more, sucking life toward me through a straw. I was a consumer in a world where there would never be enough. I was a pinpoint in a black hole, one of those hungry ghosts.

I sat in the devastating stillness of that realization. Everything was flat and dead, just as I’d always feared it would be. To stop was to die.

But that was another story.

It wasn’t like they say. The emptiness was not full. That’s a spiritual platitude. The emptiness was empty, and I beheld a terrible truth: I was a fiction.

Then, the tide changed, ever so slightly at first, subtle, and then more and more. Energy poured through me into the room, into the world. It had force, a current, and a sound, but outside my register, like a dog whistle. And it was huge.

“What do you want?” Ramana asked again.

I met his gaze in wonder because it was so true. “I want to give,” 

So, what do you want?