Please Show Me Who I Am, No Matter The Cost
Pounding a signpost into the metaphysical pasture heading into 2024
The Breakaway Phone Call
Close to three years ago, I found myself hurtling toward a spiritual prison that I knew I would never escape unless I did something drastic. I don’t consider myself particularly religious, and I certainly didn’t put too much stock in prayer, so what came next was out of character. After enduring a summer of almost nothing but trauma, two days before I was set to return to work from my leave of absence, I sat down and made an explicit request to God:
“I have found myself completely trapped, in ways I wouldn’t have ever predicted. I understand that, despite my intelligence and effort, I have not been able to outrun the jail walls that threaten to enclose me, probably permanently. I recognize that I need help that goes beyond simple change: flaccid adjustments in behavior, or attitude, or skill. For all these reasons, I am asking for one thing: please show me who I am, no matter the cost. Whatever you show me, and however you show it, I will do whatever I possibly can to abide by it.”1
Please show me who I am, no matter the cost.
It’s fitting that my plea to reconfigure my entire being came from a place that was completely juxtaposed to my then-current being. There are times in life when you learn that a transformation comes about only after you’ve committed to it, and fully entered it; it won’t happen any other way despite whatever preparations you think you’ve made. You are the vehicle for μετάνοια (metanoia) to incarnate.
Getting married is a metanoia of this sort, and so is becoming a parent (though I’m not speaking from direct experience at this time).2 In my case, I’m quite grateful to have learned the nature of metanoia in a much lower-stakes arena because it makes the future much easier to jump into.
Thoe majority of folks in my inner circle know the rest of the story: the very next day during that sweltering summer, I received a call from my former high school English teacher that fundamentally altered my path from one of bondage to one of liberation.
The Trinity of Qualities
Sometime in 2021, after I had been in EXIT for a couple of months, it was revealed to me that my धर्म (dharma) from that point onward was to be focused on three qualities:
Clarity
Integrity
Discernment
This is a somewhat surprising trinity, or at least it’s not completely obvious. It’s missing a lot that one might assume the Divine considers important – for example Love or Faith. I wouldn’t have necessarily trusted this revelation but for the fact that the way it happened made complete sense.
It didn't come in the form of a voice from heaven, nor a paragraph from a sacred text, nor a particular person delivering a prophecy. The way it felt was as if in a particular moment, a lot of different threads of energy snapped together in my spinal cord.
The Sanskrit word for ‘spine’ is मेरुदंड (Meru Danda, pronounced “may-roo dun-dah”, for my Indian-language challenged friends). The word मेरु (Meru) means mountain or peak and the word दंड (Danda) means stick or staff. However, the phrase in its entirety translates to ‘axis of the universe’. In other words, the spine is the rod that roots in the ground and rises into the sky; it is what binds the celestial and earthly worlds together3.
Because of this, my entire project for the next two-and-some years became aligning myself to this trinity with minimal deviation. This has not been a simple project. I don’t know about you, but it’s not particularly clear what the correct order or orientation among these three qualities is.
As I’ve come to understand it, the confusion is kind of the point.
The Space Between Jesus and Krishna
A fair number of people have asked me since the events at the beginning of this story if, “I have given myself over to the Lord,” or “if I have finally converted.” I never know what to say, because this feels like an entirely wrong question. What am I supposed to be converting to? Do I only give myself over because I undergo a pre-labeled ritual that others pat me on the back for completing?
My intuition is that many would rather have a clear box to place me in than look at the territory of the spiritual jungle I’m traveling through. To those people: the words that you use to describe yourself and the institutions you belong to are empty.
The Eternal One has shown Himself to me in more explicit ways than just vague nervous system tingles. The only way I can describe my current relationship with the All-Encompassing is that I am caught in the space between Jesus and Krishna, and this is where I belong; it’s where He wants me to be.
This aspect of my communion is the least comprehensible and the most animating. What I write here might offend a lot of people, and purposely so. If what read upsets you, then I will have done my job; if, on the other hand, it opens up your curiosity, then I have faith that – no matter what else – we could be good friends moving forward.
Jesus appeared for the first time in a dream filled with flames and shadows, during a week of grotesque illness that consumed me for close to seven days, right after a week-long visit with my parents in which we finally dissolved some bitter outstanding frictions (some of which are an inheritance from generations ago!)
I didn’t recognize Him at first, but when I finally did, I was startled, and then delighted. He did nothing except stand upright and witness me with a sense of remote yet intimate tenderness. I assume He must have been doing something because the flames dancing around me felt cleansing despite their brutality.
By this point, I've heard a lot of people testify to how incredible it was for them when Christ finally showed up in their life, so I'll be honest, I was pretty annoyed that His visit amounted to essentially, “That sucks, bro 😞” while I was delirious. I probably wouldn't be so butthurt about it if He had showed up at all after that, but I guess He made the contact He needed to and determined that I'm good to go for a while.
Krishna was much easier to identify. His mischievous energy is unmistakable. He is the Divine Comedian. He showed up twice; once to reconnect me with the spirit of my maternal grandmother who passed away many years ago; she has been an invaluable guardian angel throughout my life. And once to peel away some long-lasting wounds between my brother and me that were preventing us from advancing into a more mature form of στοργή (storge) as adults.
I guess God knows how important my family is to me, so His most targeted interventions have been to restore health to my family systems. Both times, He spent a lot of time smirking at me for being too tightly wound.
Just to give you an idea of how Krishna is fundamentally a prankster, here’s a brief recapitulation of how He rescued Draupadi (in case you’re not familiar with the scene Mahabharata). Recall that Yudhistira gambled away Draupadi to the Kauravas after a rigged game of dice orchestrated by Shakuni. As the Kauravas were about to surround and violate her, she prayed to Krishna for salvation.
Now, what would you predict God would do to protect one of his most beloved daughters from this situation? Maybe create a forcefield around her so the barbarians can’t reach her; perhaps whisk her away from the hall; if truly desperate, just annihilate the lustful savages in the blink of an eye.
Instead, as the Kauravas attempted to disrobe her, they found – much to their chagrin – that they couldn’t because after each layer of clothing was stripped, a new layer was discovered underneath: Krishna’s solution was to infinitely spawn robes on demand until the would-be rapists give up in frustration4.
Whimsy amid the horror.
The Webs of Suffering
Suffering is an experience that chains you to steel bars but is also the very same experience that reveals the keys that get you out of the chains. Suffering is not generalized, it is exacting: the way that it is shaped, the details of how it moves, the times and places it chooses to bubble up into consciousness – the metal links that envelop you show precisely how to break them, if you are patient.
Jesus and Krishna were born under conditions of severe duress, both of them with a target on their back, and the latter exiting the womb into a literal prison. And, yet, God in these two forms was not only unaffected by such burdens but was playful – joyful, even – because of them.
Suffering is to be approached playfully.
The webs of suffering are starting to look less like a trap and more like a playground; less of an ensnarement and more of a cradle5.
The New Year’s Cradle
Unfortunately, I am not patient. I am greedy. I want the answers and I want them quickly. I tend to have a personality that wants to be in charge and get to the goal without distractions. This a caution to any future lover: you ought to be prepared for premature ejaculation because I’m in a rush to finish up.
My approach to the project of orienting toward clarity, discernment, and integrity thus far had been to dig for a solution that I could put on a piece of paper and stick to the refrigerator. This approach only got me so far, and right as I became stuck, I had my three audiences with the Almighty in rapid succession.
One of my favorite books is The Immanent Metaphysics by Forrest Landry. At the beginning, he states the following.
To search for meaning is to find it. To fail to search for meaning is to be without it.
He explains that: “The process of learning and the finding of Truth is more effective when one searches for what is true, rather than for that which is false.
…
It is hoped that the reader will recognize (and eventually come to trust) that there is a reason for every word and statement, every particularity of phrasing …
The reader should not expect to immediately comprehend all of the aspects of the various meanings and implications of each statement made.”
There is a new trinity that has emerged near the end of 2023, that I’m being asked to take on this upcoming year:
Humility
Reverence
Cleanliness
This trinity is not meant to supplant the other one but to inform how to go about relating to it: by placing less emphasis on the final answer and more on showing my work. I don’t aim to sound cliché, but it looks like one thing my Creator is teaching me is that my Dharmic assignment lies in the solving – the choice and the commitment to engage – and not the solution.
It might sound weird, but practicing reverence for the prisons that I inhabit, and having the humility to tend my bindings – by paying attention to their textures and flavors – is somehow freeing6.
I want to close out the year by articulating an important intention: I aspire to find people who will trek with me. I have been trekking out in the wilderness alone for a while, and it gets lonely out here. I don’t want to feel lonely anymore. One condition for signing up to be in my troupe is developing a deep respect for what I’ve shared in this post.
And, lastly, if you decide to join my circus, you must be willing to show me who I am, no matter the cost.
My actual prayer was much more muddled and badly worded than this, but even if I don’t remember the precise wording and timing, I am deadly sure that this was the gist.
Though not for lack of trying. If you’re the one who desires to make these direct experiences, hit me up. I guarantee I will make a fantastic husband.
Consider what the phrase, “Grow a backbone!” means in this light. You’re not only telling someone they lack courage but also that they are in a fallen mode of being.
If that story isn’t enough to convince you how much of a troll Krishna is, you can read another one about how as a baby He defeated the demoness Putana by suckling the poison out of her until she perished. That’s right – Krishna’s solution to conquering evil women is to suck their titties to death.
I did not befriend Yatharth, or even know him, until earlier this year, but the date on that thread coincides with the day I decided to take a leave of absence. We’re also part of a ~weekly group container; during one session we did a ceremony in which the only two ancestors who showed up were my grandmother (named Krishna) and another girl’s grandfather (named Jesus). Make of that what you will.
I’m not quite sure how cleanliness fits in yet, but my impression is that there is a way to undergo captivity cleanly – uninhibited by tension or negative anticipation, not muddied by the compulsion to make it make sense or justify it.
Great memes