Corrine Russell

R.E. #3/NCLC 375-007

Sp03, 02 APR 03

Refection #3: Examine your own beliefs around religion, values, and spirituality, and how they relate to non-violence.

I was going to try to make the following a profound and superbly styled piece of work, delving into delivery mechanisms for outmoded mores and ideological proxies used by men of power for their own aims, but that quickly got boring and stifling. I got a whole two pages done, but it was intellectually self-indulgent schlock. Here it is, put simply: I was raised an atheist, brought up to believe that there is no such thing as morality beyond the confines of superstition and that there is nothing more to existence than the physical - that I could touch my arm and know all there is to know about "me".

The problem is that while the seeds planted by my parents have survived and prospered somewhere within, I also remember being very young (around five), riding in my father's jeep while watching the road go by through the rusted-out holes in the floor, clutching a Popple, and asking, "I wonder where'd I'd be if I wasn't here..."

"What do you mean? You couldn't be anyplace else. You're the result of a special combination between me and your mother. You couldn't have otherwise existed."

"No...that's not what I mean. I mean I wonder where I'd be. If I wasn't here, I'd be someplace - just not here."

"No, as I said before - you couldn't be anyplace else."

"Yes I could. I might not be like this, but I'd be some way."

The conversation ended there. By this point in my life I would almost think it to be a tainted memory, implanted sometime later and ascribing those words to my little self; but my father remembers that exchange nearly word-for-word, too. He says that that is when he began to think me a genuinely odd child. I also remember staring into the mirror when I was about the same age and feeling absolutely overtaken by the wonder of the fact that I was alive. That I was there to observe myself and think on my being blew me away. I would begin to tingle and feel like I was floating, the awe was so intense.

Then when I was 12 I was subject to an interminably long bus ride (as will happen when one lives on the end of a dirt road in the rural section of a county). My mind would wonder; it was often thinking without any kind of conscious effort, and one time - all at once and for an all-too-fleeting moment - the entire world made "sense". That word, though, is a woefully inadequate description of what overcame me. In one instant, I saw and felt the complete and unalterable connectedness of all creation; that it is, in all practicality, one and the same. It was as a completely exhilarating and peaceful an experience as when I used to gaze at my own reflection, but expanded outward to infinity. I thought myself crazy and alone in these thoughts, which is a large part of the reason I felt so relieved upon discovering a similar strain in Buddhism.

One day when I was fourteen, then, I died - at least for a moment. A monstrous, hurricane-generated wave off of the South Carolina coast that I was foolhardy enough to try to ride took me in hand, crashed me, and then dragged me along the ocean floor. I got out of it in shock, unable to close my jaw or stand up straight for a month, black and blue from head to foot (with two black eyes to boot), and with a scraped gash extending along the right side of my face, jaw line, and neck. It was the most beautiful experience of my life.

My recollection is very jumbled now, and more than anything I remember remembering the thoughts and events; but I still feel the feelings, even if they are not quite able to be articulated with any words at my disposal. As far as the former goes, I was - in crude terms - shocked out of my body. I saw it below being dashed about in the water. Keeping in mind that my memory on this is disjointed, I next recall seeing my life in its entirety, in real time, from its start to that moment, and not only from my perspective; but also (simultaneously) from that of everyone with which I had interacted coupled with a blow-by-blow of their thoughts, feelings, and perspectives.

Along with that, I had complete scenarios played out of what would happen if I had died, if I had lived but was crippled by the incident, or if I lived without major physical repercussions. That may have been simultaneous with the "flash back" or may have happened at any other point. I really do not know, as it seemed that I thought so quickly as to render all distinctions irrelevant. It was as if my mind, caught in a vat of molasses all my life, had finally struggled out.

As far as the latter - the feelings and sensations part - goes, I still remember those. The bittersweet fact of it all is that I can remember them, but not recall them at any moment in their full force. The overriding sense (and this is going to sound horrible and drippy) was of breathing Agape Love. That is, instead of air being the element of my existence, that was. The feeling that I had had two years earlier came back, this time clear and resonant, a reality rather than an echo. There was also the feeling of being outside of time. The revelation came that Time, as we know it, is less than an illusion. It is nonexistent. It Is in that it is used for our linear purposes, but in a far greater sense it Isn't.

I have had other, almost equally profound experiences since (including a very interesting one in a temple in south western China), but I will not get too far into them here, except to say that the events of my past are extending themselves forward. I have, for instance, begun to see what I can only guess from their appearance and from my discussions with others to be the onset of auras. As any rational person would do, I at first thought that I had a horrible eye condition (disproven by a variety of factors, including that the distortion seen varies by person or object viewed, day, and even time of day) or that I was becoming delusional; but if such is a delusion, it is one which has many sympathizers (or fellow patients) within the more esoteric traditions of the world.

I have given you this personal, rather detailed account of my experiences because, for me, my experiences are the bases of whatever faith I hold, the consequential roots of my beliefs and actions. For instance, because of my view of time and the (inter)relationship of each and every aspect of existence, I hold that people can never be used as a means to an end, however noble that end may seem, for no temporal end can be measured against another's infinite Being. This comes in direct conflict with the concept of the use of violence, as in using such methods against others one relegates them to the level of tools used for ones own gratification.

Also, frankly, there are truths that I know and feel which cannot be reasoned out, at least not by me at this moment. One such truth is that that Agape Love that I referenced before is the basis for all the world. Whether we choose to recognize it or not, every action done outside of that is an aberration to that which is more real than the "reality" in which we find ourselves immersed; but even the injury of such actions is completely overcome by that Love. There is no "ultimate judgment" beyond that which we levy upon ourselves for the sake of learning through our past behaviors so that we can, for some odd reason, strive towards being a walking, talking example of that ideal. Nonviolent action is a necessary correlate to that endeavor, as it serves both to separate ourselves and the "other" from the cycle of hatred and vendettas, punishment and retribution that blinds us to the overriding forgiveness that we were made to manifest.

Again, I do not know why and I cannot say why the above is so - it is simply what the fire in my belly given to me through the various incidents of my life screams Life to be; and I know that I may very well sound like a raving lunatic - that I do indeed to that part of me still adhering to my dad's beliefs - but that, for me, the kind of knowing that I have, even if not strictly logical, trumps all else.