Edward’s Diary Entry 41 – Virtue 20: Faith in the Strength of One’s Higher Nature (Absence of fickleness) (Achapalam)

I consider this Virtue to be a major milestone. Because by Achapalam, or Faith in the Strength of One’s Higher Nature (also called absence of fickleness), after some time looking within, reviewing my past endeavours and remaining at peace with myself, there is a strange sensation of surety. Not the surety of knowing something, as if I had studied a dense treatise and had mastered the words of some kind of past or present master. No, not that. But rather the kind of a surety or certainty I seemed to be afraid to manifest in former times. Why? Because life clung to me, or I clung to what I perceived as life. I wanted this, I wanted that. I thought I should have this attainment, or that achievement. Maybe I should feel this or that sensation, see this or that vision in my mind. After all, we are led down the garden path of spiritual development, or self-mastery, to think we should see lightning bolts from the sky, or the Hand of God pointing down at us, or images of this or that Saint or Holy Man, or even just hear an inner voice, like Socrates’ dæmon, which usually simply told him “no”, instead of speaking plainly with a “yes, this is what you should be doing!”, acting like the inner dictator we think we need, as if dictatorship were the finest form of scientific government. No, it’s not like that. It’s a soft inner sound, like Simon & Garfunkel’s Sounds of Silence, and if it is written on the subway walls and tenement halls, it’s written on those parts of the cranium we call the bone case, so we can sometimes see it when we look inside and react. It’s a peaceful state in which thought subsides and only runs on like a quiet brook, as we sit looking at the countryside, hearing birds and bees and the rustling of leaves. It is a certainty that behind the apparent, behind the surface noise, there is a river running deep, coursing along joyfully from the mountain springs and snows above all the way down to the expansive ocean below. At the same time, I have to say that there is nothing remarkable or dramatic about this Faith. It sits there, waiting, poised, ready. It can recede from consciousness and be met with the hustle and bustle and noise of life in the Mediterranean streets, the shopping aisles of Walmart, the take-aways of Lamb’s Creek. Yet it is there. Definitely present and strong. The animals notice it. Dogs and cats come to enjoy it and sit with me. Because it is compassionate and gives. And the wind whistles through the pine trees and blows past my shoulders to get a smell of it. The stars look down upon it and twinkle. The ground throws mud at my feet to welcome it. There is a surface nature, a personality, no doubt. But because I dared to throw down my books and my incessant thoughts, and do something by simply closing my eyes and look inside, and have persisted in this for more than 19 Virtues now, this surety, this certainty, has come to me, it abides with me, it inspires me to persevere even more, remaining as calm and as collected as possible to promote it even further. Because there is more, so much more, than just a string of human thoughts that sits just behind our awareness, and it is a terrible shame that you – yes, you, my reader – perhaps do not experience this and realise that you are so much more than you purport to be. You are not a son or a daughter, a father or a mother, an heir to your family’s inheritance; you belong to no family; you have no nationality, no country; you were not born of this world; you have no religion, no creed; you are not a disciple or follower of some wise man; your spirit knows nought of teachings: you have no likes or dislikes, no special penchants or inclinations, you are free from all this; your mind is only confused by a nonexistent past or a future hope; you did not come here to fit into a society, a culture, a set of morals; you came to see timeless truth wherever or whatever you are; you are neither boy nor girl, man or woman, straight or gay; you have just adapted to circumstances; you have no labels, you accepted them; you know not who you are; you just think you do. And when thought goes, which it will when your brain eventually gives way and flatlines, all will be lost; all that which you think you have will be lost; not just the material things, but the mental constructs as well, and you will not hear the wind, or play with the dogs and cats, love your mate or say good morning to your neighbour, reminisce on your belongings, affinities, friendships and loves any more. No. You will just return and be what 99% of the universe already is – nothingness – from which, surprisingly, comes the most powerful conclusion we can draw, and that is that the only reasonable course in life is to culture Faith in the Strength of one’s Higher Nature. For lower nature… is just for the birds. And not even that, for the birds do their thing and are totally birds, without pretending to be as smart and as know-it-all as poor self-centred humans, obsessed with human thought when they are much wealthier than all that. And so, we continue to do as Krishna does in the picture, controlling all five serpents, sitting on the very body of the snake, yet remaining unperturbed by the throbbing of its coiled presence, eyes closed, smiling at life within and without.