When Johnny Begood was eight years old, he experienced a horrendous event. If it had been an earthquake, it would have measured as a ground-shaking, pavement-heaving 10.0 on the Richter Scale. Now, at forty-seven, he can still remember what happened as though it was yesterday. Please glaze your eyes slightly as we travel back in time: Johnny was helping his father build a plywood doghouse:
Gleefully, Johnny hammered the shiny nails, one after another: Thump, thump! Thump, thump! Whack, whack, whack! Over and over, he repeated the process, using his “real man” hammer that his parents had bought him for his birthday. Before his very eyes, each nail that had stood so tall was pounded down, until its head was flush with the surface of the plywood. HE WAS A CARPENTER! However, during the pounding of one particularly stubborn nail that was leaning off to the side, his left thumb somehow strayed into the territory that was the domain of the head of his hammer. As the taut forearm muscles of his right arm brought the hammer down forcefully, he remembers seeing (as though in slow motion) the head of the hammer a mere split second before it contacted the surface of his tender young thumb. A thumbnail that turned purple within hours was his reminder for the next few weeks. The lesson: Keep your free hand away from the strike zone of the hammer.
***
As life would have it, Johnny Begood learned something else from that incident. He learned that he liked to help other people by sharing what he had learned; to spare them some of the pain associated with his “lessons.” In addition to cautions about the proper use of a hammer, he was also inspired to advise his younger siblings and neighbourhood friends of the following: that fingers and spokes of a spinning bicycle wheel should never get too close; that raccoons in the wild don’t like it when you poke a stick near them; and that before sitting on the end of a tree branch, you should always ensure that the branch is still alive. Johnny’s love of sharing knowledge would continue for the rest of his life.
Later in life, Johnny’s most important lesson was related to his sudden recognition of his true Self when he was forty-two. The profound nature of the “experience” was beyond words. He realized, of course, that awakening from the dream of personhood had to be known directly; but he was still happy to offer pointers to seekers who approached him with their questions. Using the hammer incident as an analogy, he advised seekers to maintain a healthy distance from the strike zone related to the perspective of their person. In this way, events that happened to the body-mind were processed in a detached manner, which lessened any associated suffering. He also reminded them of their innate I Amness–Consciousness, in which, and through which, all apparent events took place. “Be That which is aware of the person,” he said, “not the person.” During some of his talks, he shared the following description of our essential nature from the Bhagavad Gita:
“Weapons cannot cut it, nor can fire burn it; water cannot wet it, nor can wind dry it.”
In the years his recognition of true Self, Johnny has known of several seekers who have realized their essential nature. In other words, they transcended their conditioning–the uninvestigated belief that they were the person. You, too, dear readers may recognize That which you truly are. Do you dare? No hammers required; just an earnest eagerness to realize Truth.
Dare to dream (and care for one another).
With heartfelt regards,
Art
Copyright © – 2023 – R. Arthur Russell
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