Ship-Shape, Bristol Fashion and Amazing Grace

This is a message addressed to a place which I have never visited and to the people living there, many of whom I have never met, but for whom I feel such affection and appreciation. These are people who are living a life of passionate service to others, and this is my love letter to them in thanks for that service. In acknowledging them as one shining example of benefit for all, I thereby acknowledge as well all the people all around the world who are living in the same way.

So, first to the title and the reason for this letter: “Ship-shape and Bristol fashion” is an old expression in Britain that almost no one uses anymore, which means “efficiently arranged, in good order.” It comes from the fact that the city of Bristol was once one of the busiest ports in England, but it is located on an estuary where the tidal range is ten meters. So, at high tide the ships are floating on ten meters of water, but at low tide many of the ships would end up touching the bottom of the harbor and could tip to one side. Everything on the ship needed to be properly secured; otherwise, it could tip over and break. Hence, the sailors needed to protect the cargo so that it would be “ship-shape and Bristol fashion.”

Another aspect of Bristol’s maritime history is that in the 1700s it was the leading port for slave ships going to Africa and then to America. Over a hundred-year period, as many as 2,000 ships left Bristol to transport almost a half million people into slavery. One of the many slave-ship captains in those days was a man named John Newton. He was originally pressed into involuntary service in the Royal Navy as a young man, and he was known to be one of the most disobedient, disrespectful and foul-mouthed sailors on any of the ships. He had frequent arguments with the officers, and he was actually imprisoned for a while for his bad conduct. Nevertheless, through his intelligence and sailing skill, over time he gained the respect of his superiors and was eventually promoted to the position of captain on some of the slave ships.

While he was on a ship sailing in the North Atlantic, a huge storm blew in and battered the ship so violently that everyone onboard was sure that they would sink and drown. Newton felt the fear and emotion so completely that in that moment he experienced a spiritual conversion. He gradually gave up his old ways and decided to begin a new life, and he would eventually write a hymn of redemption and liberation that is known all over the world—“Amazing Grace.”

So, now, how does all this tie together and what is this “love letter” really all about? I so enjoy looking at words in a new way and seeing a meaning that was not apparent before, and when I first heard this phrase “Bristol fashion,” an image came into my head and I understood that phrase is a manner vastly different from the one which it had originally.

I happen to have many friends in Bristol who are a part of a worldwide community of people who are devoted to serving all, and who exemplify a way of life that is a model for how people can live together happily. I feel sure that, based on this and other models of its kind, more and more communities around the world will emerge in which the culture of gratitude and service is pervasive. The more I thought about this incredible change in the world—that people can come together in harmony with one another with the intention of serving one another and serving all—the more I came to understand the phrase “Bristol fashion” in a new way.

This way of life, this Bristol fashion, has a lot to do with the recognition that John Newton had and why he was moved to write a song about amazing grace. His song is about finding a simple and sincere way of living that liberates through faith: “I once was lost but now am found; Was blind but now I see; Was grace that relieved my fears, that gave me a life of joy and peace…bright shining as the sun,” and so many other bountiful lines.

However, these would only be so many words if they were not actually realized in the lives of people. But, yes, these words are coming alive in people all over the world. This Bristol-fashion way of living has a lot to do with making a simple change in one’s life—a change in which one relies on one’s own inherent peace, harmony and clarity, rather than being ruled by all the wild promptings of thoughts and emotions. It is such a simple choice and a simple practice: over and over again, regardless of what arises, one rests in that place of peace. This directly and inevitably leads to freedom from the enslavement to a raging mind. When one makes that choice over and over again for short moments many times and then can come together with others who are also living that way, marvelous things can happen.

So, this little love letter to those people in Bristol and around the world who are living in the Bristol fashion is an act of gratitude on my part—gratitude for wonderful people who are dedicated to bringing joy and abundance into the lives of others. How empowering it is for me to write these words and feel such confidence in their coming into fruition—that there will in fact be the amazing grace of people living all over the world in the Bristol fashion.

Why It is Actually a Good Idea to Celebrate Your Birthday

So, okay, first my confession: for all of my adult life I chose to keep my birthday a sort of elusive secret. Sure, my family knew when it was, and girlfriends would find out, and potential employers would have to have a record of it, but otherwise my response to kind inquiries about the day would be, “Sure, it’s on February 31st” and we would have a good laugh together.

I think the issue for me was just one of not wanting to bother with it or for people to make a fuss. I absolutely didn’t want a party or any cards or presents or any acknowledgment at all. I also came from a spiritual tradition that frowned on focusing on the individual, and part of my interpretation of this stance was that one should not be special or stand out in any way. So, the 30th birthday came and went, then the 40th and the 50th and all the birthdays in between, and the same routine of keeping quiet would remain intact.

Then something interesting happened. Two years ago, very innocently, someone who had access to my personal records kindly wished me “Happy Birthday” on a conference call, and the cat, as they say, was out of the bag. Because the actual birthday date was not mentioned, some friends who were on the call emailed me to find out the exact day, so I just thought, “Well, what the hell, I will post the date on Facebook, and then those folks will know.”

Now we come to the point where a grand discovery was made. People started to write in to wish me a Happy Birthday—mostly people whom I knew directly, but then old friends from high school, and then friends from my years in Germany, and then others and more others. I thought, “Wow, look, because of this I get to be in touch with these incredible folks! They are such a rich part of my life, and many of them I hardly get to see at all.” I was so touched by the notes they wrote, and it seemed entirely fitting and proper to write them right back with my own thanks. In the same way that they appreciated the opportunity to offer their gratitude to me, I felt such a joy to be able to offer it right back to them.

And this is how I discovered why it is actually a good idea to celebrate your birthday. It isn’t an excuse to fixate on oneself. No, not that at all. It is about being with the people we love in this way and having that opportunity to share our loving affection for one another. If they wanted to express their gratitude to me, that felt so natural, because I so much wanted to express my incredible gratitude for them. What better way for people to come together? Really, what better way for people to come together than in dear, sweet love.

So, yes, today happens to be my birthday, and the day has been such an absolute joy. Each time I receive a new notification of a message on Facebook, it is a total touching-in between friends, which is then naturally shared with many other friends. I get the chance to bask in the love that is provided so generously and to wish it right back to the generous giver.

Over the next 365 days, all of us will have a birthday, and what I know now from finally becoming open to the idea of acknowledging birthdays is that it is a marvelous time to be aware of one’s many, many blessings and to experience the thanksgiving for the people we have in our lives. Yes, there it is: I feel such gratitude for all of you and the lives we are leading together and for what is possible for us. Pondering that graceful blessing once a year for myself, and with all of you on your birthdays throughout the year, has now become a joyous occasion which I will look forward to for many more years to come. Thank you all.

Word Euphoria, One Sound at a Time

(Dear Friends, these paragraphs below may appear to be total nonsense unless I first explain that they are meant to be a celebration of words and their melodious sound. I found a few lists of what people felt were the most beautiful sounding words in the English language, and I took the words and pieced them together in a sort of prose poem. So, that is what you have below: a celebration of the most wonderful sounds in the English language!)

Oh, melody, oh, beauty. The lyrical sound takes a shape; mellifluous music flows and the redolent word entices. An elixir so secret that only the poet knows. Dulcet tones wafting freely with no author. Extraordinaire! Gossamer threads of reverie touching another.

Nightingale heralds, wood thrush embellishes, peacock astounds.

Epiphany bubbles forth: luminescent, illustrative, delicious —succulently filled with the intonations of harmony. Resonant, yes, ever so subtle. Nothing superfluous.

Evanescent and ephemeral these echoes may be, but yet alluring and enticing themselves into memory.

Allegory: precipitous terrain without a guide. The mist departs.

Sweet serendipity collecting its members: sea-foam green and tangerine merging into aquamarine. Glistening azure.

Balancing cinnamon, a dollop of fudge and sweet lavender, what to choose? A lollypop of all? Serene shapes flourishing in chiaroscuro—a velvety overlay with chimera at the edges. No mere disconnected paraphernalia here; all woven together.

Salvador in paradise… him?? Finding sanctuary in the Elysian fields, halcyon days hinting at the ineffable. Resurrection. Shining aurora above the citadel on the hill. Sylvan sights for sure: the autumnal Worchester meadow rich in harvest, bordered by a brook. No saturnine threats from the heavens, ever.

What? No meaning here? Think again.

The feminine sway: curvaceous line—smooth, lithe, dancing vivaciously. Or did he mean to say voluptuous?

A loquacious ingénue’s silhouette swishing into shadow, both of them sashaying to a chosen place more cozy. A fetching bride she might be? (Voices heard off stage): “Arianna, so narcissistic, and then her shenanigans with no cachet, oh vey.”

Henri in ennui, lackadaisical, stuck in the mud of shilly-shally. Dressed in melancholy for the party. Not enough courage for soliloquy.

Back from the boulevards of Vienna and down the cellar door, slowwwwwly, languorously, lugubriously. Sanguine and serene, listen there: suave whispers that curve and don’t collide—cursive forms meandering along. Pandemonium avoided; good for that!

Assuage the predatory and savage, conciliate with the raging.

Pensively flabbergasted at the marvelous, amazed when the enigma loosens its grasp. Conflagrations extinguished. Nothing askew. Acquiesce to the opulently miraculous. Silence, as awe envelopes.

Bamboozled no longer, dear whimsy, let us have more of it!

The Hum of Bliss

Stunned into silence by gratitude, I am freed from the bondage of the merely apparent. However long You may have been drowned by the deceptive drone of busy-ness, Sweet Presence, NOW You disclose Yourself. The hum of bliss is Your song, and every speck of space sings it.

Pervasive, infinitely potent, forever existing but hidden, You slip back the veil and reveal Yourself as overwhelmingly present, despite the distraction of the 10,000 things. You have been a most illusive bride, but in this instant you are no longer concealed. Blessed are the ones who are allowed to glimpse You.

Dearest, You have never left me, so leave me no more. You have only concealed Your mystery by virtue of Your grandeur. With no lack, feeling no hindrance, seeking nothing, the search evaporates like spilled water on a blazingly brilliant day.

Yes, the hum of bliss…hummmmm…sustaining all, unfolding in ever more astonishing variety, but never once departing from the here-and-now. Sweetness, oh love, oh joy, You burst forth unasked. Courageously we leave all of what is familiar and grasp Your hand.

Your beauty is indescribable, but only because it is too vast for human words. Bride of my heart, I adore You. I forsake all others. None of the heedless can wed You, but I know that You are not far away. Whisper in my ear once more, for I never grow weary of Your coaxing. Come to me, Dearest, I will be a faithful lover.

Words from the Heart, To the Heart

Today I would like to speak of something of great interest to so many of us, and it has to do with how profoundly intimate communication can take place. We so much want to connect with one another in a meaningful way, but the commonplace give-and-take of daily life usually leaves us lacking. We attend to an onrush of words from so many sources, yet we get very little sustaining nourishment from these words, which are typically given and received without passion or conviction. There is no fault-finding intended by saying this, only to point out that we do not often find ourselves in situations where the deepest aspect of another is touching the deepest part of us.

Somehow, through an extraordinary good fortune in my privileged life, I have come to know of something different from this. When I was a young lad of twenty-seven I first came to India, a place I found to be very exotic and mysterious—filled with myriad contradictions and incongruities. One evening I ended up almost by accident at a large gathering where a very highly respected spiritual teacher would be speaking. I had no real interest in such things, but I was sufficiently curious that I went nonetheless.

What happened next was beyond anything I had ever experienced before. This woman was speaking in Hindi, a language I did not understand at all, about ideas completely unfamiliar to me, in a context that I had never been in before, but yet when I got up from my seat at the end of her talk, I knew that everything she had said had gone right into my heart. Something had been communicated which would totally change my way of seeing the world, and yet I had not understood a single word. What is this?

I speak as a person who does not at all tend towards the spectacular or the fantastic, but this was my direct experience. A person spoke, and something remarkable was communicated that did not come from the words that were spoken. It was a direct transmission that allowed an essential intercommunication to be imparted directly and immediately through non-verbal means. Having had this experience, it made me wonder what it implies about the nature of all communication.

But the example I just gave may be so unfamiliar and unlikely for most people as to be unhelpful, so let us look instead at more viable instances in life where such communication can take place. Can one envision a bond between two people, totally relaxed with each other, easefully coming together in unconditional love and respect, where the words that were spoken came directly from the heart and are received devotedly in the heart?

Not demanding anything from one another, perfectly present in the here-and-now, speaking and listening from a place of not-knowing, completely freed from the cage of narrow notions of who one is or who the other is. Hearing everything as if for the first time, without goal or obstruction, open in a way that merges the space between the two.

For this to be so, what would be required? Well, nothing additional is required. There is no effort to make, no habits to be corrected, no attentiveness to be created or obligation to be fulfilled. It is simply a matter of allowing our moment-by-moment attention to be undistracted. We may have been trained in life to follow after all our thoughts and emotions and all our judgments and assessments, but instead, for short moments many times, over and over again we keep returning to our own natural intelligence that is open and vast.

We discover this place again and again and grow more and more confident that it is not distant from us. We sense to our delight that no one is a stranger and that every sound calls us back to that place. When the heart is at rest in this place of peace, then it is not distant from other hearts that are at rest. From this place of non-separation, the most intimate of heartfelt communication takes place.

Stand By Me

Oh, wow, life’s little serendipities! Yesterday a friend introduced me to something that has really caught my attention: a group of people who want to inspire, connect and bring peace to the world through music, and the approach they have used brings the concept of “a connected world” alive in a really remarkable way.

What this group does is to have various musicians from around the world play the same song without actually coming together physically. So, for instance there are musicians in California, New Orleans, Paris, Italy, Senegal, Mali, South Africa, India, the Netherlands or wherever else being recorded singing or playing this one song, and then their parts, either vocal or instrumental, are woven together on a soundtrack and video. First you see one singer, then you see another and then another, but all the while the music that all of them are playing together is going on. As the scene shifts from country to country, one is always hearing this unified sound, so beautifully mixed together with all their contributions, totally connecting with the listener/viewer all the way through.

The blazing metaphor is unavoidable: people all contributing their talents, coming together to produce something that thrills millions of people. There are women, men, blacks, whites, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Rastafarians, long-hairs, short-hairs, old and young—and none of those categories matter in the least bit. It is the coming together that matters. Music is so totally a universal language, and it extremely powerful in the way that it can unite us regardless of our political, ethnic, geographical or ideological diversity.

It so happens that the most popular song from this group, with over two million hits on YouTube, is “Stand By Me,” a song that I have known since I was very young and which I have enjoyed over and over throughout my life. The basic lyrics go like this:

“When the night has come, And the land is dark, And the moon is the only light we’ll see, No, I won’t be afraid, no, I won't be afraid.
Just as long as you stand, stand by me.
If the sky that we look upon, Should tumble and fall, And the mountains should crumble to the sea, I won’t cry, I won’t cry, no I won’t shed a tear. Just as long as you stand, stand by me.”

So many of us want to come together and find a way to dwell with one another in unity—to stand by one another. This song project is just one example of this longing, and there are so many others. I do know one thing though: the peace we are seeking will not come from nations or leaders or peace conferences or even from beautiful songs; it will come from us, the people of the world, discovering our own inherent peace. True world peace is not going to come about in any other way. How could there be world peace with a world full of unpeaceful people?

First we find peace within ourselves, and then we live a life that responds to the world from that place of peace. As more and more people discover that place of peace, automatically a grassroots movement of peace-recognizers will form without anyone really trying to do so. People will be choosing peace for themselves, one moment at a time, and others will be inspired by this example. They will recognize the benefits, want those benefits for themselves, and the candle flame will continue to pass from one peace pilgrim to another.

What is beginning in small ways amongst scattered groups of people will build relentlessly in momentum, and at some point it will be unstoppable. “Stand By Me” indeed! Slowing but surely, more and more peaceful people will stand together and will choose peace for themselves. It begins with each of us, one moment at a time.

The Marriage of Total Grief and Total Joy

We are told throughout our lives to believe that our emotions have power over us. We learn that if we are, for instance, sad or depressed or grief-stricken, then this emotion is solid and real and it has the capacity to rule us for as long as we are wrapped in it. We are also led to believe that two opposing emotions cannot coexist at the same time. So, say for instance, one could not possibly feel great sadness and great happiness at the same time, as those two solid and substantial states would necessarily crowd one another out.

I now know from my own direct experience that all of this is completely untrue.

Recently I was waiting to go up to speak to about seventy lovely friends, and five minutes before that talk was to begin, I was given the unexpected news that a dear friend, a lovely young person full of kindness and compassion, had died suddenly. For a moment I simply stood there in shock with my hands clasped over my face. The grief came pouring in and I was totally absorbed by it. I felt all the deepest feelings welling up, and I was about to break into tears. But I also recognized that I would need to be at rest with this flood of emotion, because I would be momentarily addressing people who had not yet heard the news and that this was not the proper time to inform them.

I recollected myself, stood quietly for a minute and let everything be as it is. I then went up front to the stage, trembling with emotion as I sat down in the chair in front of a sea of wondering faces. When it was my turn to speak, I had no idea what I would say. However, all of a sudden a vivid image came into my head: the lovely lupine flowers that we have beside the roadside in summer. I spoke of how when the lupines are picked and placed in a vase, they still have the life and intelligence to move towards to sun, separating themselves from one another to give each stem enough space to grow. I described how these flowers, like all the seasonal flowers, had a time of life and then they died. The metaphorical relationship between the flowers and what had happened with our young friend was very present for me, and I was engulfed by intense grief.

But then, as I just sat there and let the emotions wash over me, I could see that grief was not the only thing present, even if it was overwhelmingly present. Simultaneous to the grief and equally at hand was an awe-inspiring joy and gratitude. I could not say that the joy and gratitude was for anything in particular, but there it was in equal measure to the crushing grief.

How could this be? I was not in a position just then to figure it out, and thank goodness for that. Instead, I was in a very auspicious instant of total clarity, watching something quite extraordinary happen: two tremendous feelings that I had never experienced at one time together were totally and completed wedded to one another in that precious moment.

We completed the talk, and I think that it is fair to say that I came off that stage a different person from the one who went up to it. I had seen, in my own direct experience, that the names for emotions don’t matter. Whatever description we give to things, it is all one incredibly beneficial energy flowing in a marvelous and miraculous way. Once this is seen, then it is also seen that there is nothing to be avoided and nothing to be afraid of. Life in all its glory is ever-present in the here and now, and it is only our descriptions that distract us from that gift.

I am reminded of an ancient teaching which I will paraphrase here: Wisdom is not difficult for those who have no preferences. When love and hate are both absent, everything becomes clear and undisguised. Make the smallest distinction, however, and heaven and earth are set infinitely apart. If we wish to see the truth, then hold no opinions for or against anything. To set up what you like against what you dislike is merely the play of the mind. When the deep meaning of things is not understood, the mind’s essential peace is disturbed to no avail. Be serene in the oneness of things, and such erroneous views will disappear by themselves. With a single stroke we are freed from bondage.