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By
Vidya Ishaya
How can you know that a tree is unshakable
unless a hurricane has tried to rip it from its roots? How can
you know that a person is bold unless fear is in the air? How
can a tree give quality fruit without having some of its
branches pruned?
In the summer of 1996, I rode a bicycle from
the Kansas-Colorado border up through Montana and Oregon down to
Phoenix. Why? Because it was my heart’s desire. There was
nothing I wanted to do with my life more than bicycling across
the USA – on a pleasure cruise, or so I thought…
Early one dewy bright morning, camped in the
tall grass of a reservoir in Wyoming, I awoke to the sounds of
stomping and bellowing and snorting, first at a distance, then
coming closer and still closer to my tent. In record time, I
slid out of my sleeping bag, zipped open the door, and looked
out to see an enormous white bull just on the other side of the
treeline. I learned at that moment just what fear is.
I fled from my tent, imagining the bull just
behind me, and sprinted for the fence. From the road, as I
watched the bull approach my brightly colored tent, I thought
sure this was the end of my journey. I envisioned my tent and
everything I owned strewn all over the pasture. But wait…
Flowing through a grove of trees near the
tent was a little stream. All the bull wanted was his morning
drink. The snorting and bellowing was just what bulls naturally
do in the morning. After a leisurely drink, he grazed around
(for a couple hours) and finally wandered away. Now, that was
scary. That was so scary I could have abandoned my whole trip,
never wanting to experience such a horrible possibility ever
again. But I made a decision right then. The choice was to
either give up everything I wanted and go back to a comfortable
(but dreary) life without fear of such a terror, or to continue
on… even though such an experience might happen again. I
chose.
I remember thinking, "I’d rather be
terrified and die than accept a dreary life of comfort and
routine." So I continued… and as it turned out, this was
just the first of many such experiences. One night, in black
bear country, I laid awake all night, jumping at every little
night sound. And another time, in the Mojave Desert, many miles
from anything but hot rocks and sand, I totally ran out of
water. Yet each and every time, something wonderful happened
that turned the whole experience around. This taught me trust.
Every evening, as the sun set, I needed to
find a place to camp. Even in the most unlikely places, I always
found good (and often, great) places to camp. One evening, in
Fresno, California, as I was riding through miles of fenced-in
orange groves, both tires blew out with multiple thorn holes in
each. No houses around, no place to camp, my last $20 in my
pocket -- what to do?
I stuck my thumb out and immediately got a
pickup ride to a campground. The owner was totally charming, and
we sat up late that night swapping stories. In the morning, he
drove me all over town and even helped pay for a set of
thorn-resistant tubes.
Now, how does that happen? It’s impossible
for anything like that to happen if you can’t trust your
universe. My experience, again and again, is that even in the
midst of what looks like dire circumstances, I can trust that
everything is A-OK. Over and over, my trust is confirmed. I then
find myself able to both understand and then help other people
deal with whatever comes up for them.
Late one night, in a dorm room, while trying
to sleep, I was being kept awake by giggling and whispering
going on nearby. My whole being filled with anger, but the
thought came, "What’s wrong with young people giggling
and laughing? It’s completely natural. They’re not doing
anything wrong. So why be a bad guy and yell at them?" So I
didn’t.
Bad choice. When the heart wants to move, and
the mind is allowed to interfere, the result is suffering. All
next day, I felt dreadful. The heart held anger. The energy was
stuck. (See how "stuck" is a choice?) The solution was
to allow the anger to come out, however that looked in the
moment. It took the form of being pissed at a sweet, young girl
singing nearby. "Stop that damn singing. I can’t stand
it," I bellowed out. Well, that certainly moved the energy.
And it gave a chance for the singer to feel her feelings around
being yelled at. For me, again, this was a trust issue – that
I could put out exactly where my heart was at, and the universe
wouldn’t fall apart around me. (It never does.)
Sometimes I hear people express fear and
sometimes resentment that the world doesn’t appear stable.
There have been so many changes, so many people doing things in
a different way from "the way things have always been
done," so many people deciding to follow their heart
elsewhere, so much that refuses to stay firm and fixed in one
place.
How else can you learn to have trust and be
rock-solid stable in the midst of changes unless the world
around you appears to be scary, chaotic and downright unstable?
If time and time and time again, when the fear dissipates and
the outside world stops wavering for a bit, you find you’re
stronger inside, what’s the problem?
What’s happening in the world is growth –
and very quick growth. Inner stability, growth, and strength are
what I see happening. Those people who want growth (and are
willing to do whatever it takes) are getting it. Those who find
they have different desires at the moment are fulfilling those
desires. And that’s perfect! You can only be where you are at.
And each person’s universe is giving them exactly what they
want. (That’s the nature of the beast.)
The fact is: we heal individually when we
trust our universe; that is, when we recognize there’s nothing
wrong, and there never has been anything wrong. The world heals
the same way: when everyone recognizes there’s nothing wrong,
and there never has been anything wrong.
Trust, with complete innocence and watch your
world blossom. What could be more worth doing?
Vidya Ishaya is not only the webmaster for
InnerWorks Publishing, but also offers an enlightening
newsletter at www.awakeningpath.com
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