Change -As one Door Closes

Two years ago, I was on the verge of a tremendous change in my life, one that would see me begin a spiritual journey unlike anything I had ever attempted. This change was sudden, exciting, rapid, and heartbreaking. By the time I completed the major transition, I felt love, peace, and a new connection with a world from which I had strived to distance myself. But I also lost nearly everyone I had ever cared about, including my wife.

            At the end of 2013, I had a secure job as a geographer for a Native American tribe. My wife and I had been married for over a year, after having been together six years prior to that. My stable employment, coupled with her college education, promised a bright future of home, family, and travel. I asked for nothing more. It seemed the most challenging part of life was behind me, and I would be able to coast on my achievements. Boy was I wrong.

            January 2014: A friend of mine, who had spent several months struggling with meditation, finally had a breakthrough. She sent me a message telling me she had successfully removed a barrier and she was able to sense things she could not feel before. She also had a message for me, one of many to come:

Made of the songs of time, gentle hum of each dimension weaving together, it made YOU. YOU, your bodies, this human form, rejoice in it! It is not as weak as you think; it is made of rock and stardust and the memories of those that made you.

            Over the next few months, she would share insights that involved Love, Light, patience, and being one with humanity. She even tried to help me find my own path, which I had apparently forgotten over time.

            I was excited and I wanted to experience the same things, so I started trying to meditate. I had no idea what I was doing, but my friend did her best to guide me. For weeks, nothing happened but silence and the blackness of my inner eyelids in a darkened room. Rather than learning patience and enlightenment, I grew frustrated and angry.

            My friend’s progress continued, and she was able to advise me on a method for dropping my own barrier. I had spent decades erecting an impenetrable wall because I feared being harmed should I open myself up to the larger universe. She assured me there was nothing to fear; I could not be harmed.

            My wife advised me to envision stairs leading down to a door. I used this method during meditation, and when I opened the door, there was a brick wall preventing me from “seeing” anything beyond. This, my friend told me, was my barrier.

            During my sessions, I would visualize taking this wall apart, brick-by-brick, until one day it was gone. After that, my meditations went more smoothly. But it would be another year before I would approach the state of blissful Love I had heard so much about.

            My wife also decided to explore meditating as a way to discover herself, but after a few weeks of success, she suddenly pulled away and decided she was not interested. She wanted to focus on this world, the world of humans and cars, buildings and video games, parties and play. She had no desire to learn about things beyond the physical.

“We should focus on this world and worry about the rest when we die,” she said to me.

            By this time, I had experienced too much - and learned too much - to be able to retreat back into the shell I once created for myself. The possibilities were endless and the revelation that I was so much more was not something I could ignore. In fact, many of the everyday experiences in this world were losing their appeal.

            I tried to convince her to resume meditating, but she only grew resentful and angry. She was interested in what she could see with her eyes. But I was continuing to explore places beyond that. A rift formed between us, growing more with each meditation session. I was feeling, sensing, and realizing things that I wanted to share with my wife…but she was not interested.

            At the end of last year, I had achieved the beginnings of bliss, where I was realizing that Love was the most important thing in the universe, and we are all connected. Physical entertainment lost much of its appeal and I wanted to spend more time exploring my purpose and the nature of our existence. My wife, in turn, focused her attention toward other people.

            In time, the rift became a gorge, and we no longer had anything in common. The people she spent time with, the places she wanted to go, even the TV shows she wanted to watch were different from what interested me. I would come home from work and we weren’t even sitting on the couch together anymore. To her, I was now boring.

            When one’s marriage is falling apart, it does not matter how enlightened you are. The strain of a breakup will test a person’s ability to focus on the Now. It will challenge the ability to keep your mind clear while meditating. No matter how much you are a part of everything, the stress of a broken relationship will lead to feelings of anger, betrayal, perhaps even hate (though I managed to avoid the latter emotion).

            I suffered a setback during the breakup and divorce. I could not stop arguing with her. I could not keep my mind clear. I could not feel Love. All my energy was spent avoiding her while grappling with powerful negative emotions – emotions I thought I had overcome months before. The ease with which negativity returned caused me to doubt whether I had made any progress.

            If I am enlightened, why am I feeling anger and detestation every single day? Why can I not make it stop? Why can I not control it? Was I going to have to start over? I felt like a failure.

            My friend had more advice for me. “Even beings of Love and Light have anger,” she said. “Anger is always there. It is what you do with it that matters. You are not a failure because you choose to keep moving forward.”

            My wife moved out, we divorced last May, and for the first time in 10 years, I found myself living alone again. But I could not simply fall back on the life I had before. The lessons I had learned had changed me. I looked around the house and began throwing away – or giving away – objects that I thought I would never release.

            I tossed out photographs, video and audio recordings, writings that no longer applied to my life, decorations that no longer held any meaning for me. The video recordings surprised me. I never thought I would throw them away. But when I looked at them, I felt nothing. They were the past. They were another me from another time. I did not recognize that person anymore.

“There, the house is cleaned,” I thought to myself last summer. I looked around. “Now what do I do? Am I going to spend the rest of this life alone?”

            You see, I had a new fear: isolation. I live in a rural location and my family is scattered in other states. My one close friend lives in Texas, nearly 2000 miles away. I stood in the house, looking out at the landscape. Rather than feeling delight at the revelations I had experienced over the past year and a half, I was fearful and frustrated.

            When I began this journey, I felt certain it would bring me closer to my wife and perhaps closer to others as well. I would know Love and patience and compassion, and I would be able to share these things. “Now I can be the husband my wife truly deserves,” I thought. But that did not happen. The more I focused on my spiritual life, the less I felt connected with those around me. Rather than becoming close, my marriage ended after I found Love.

            Through the summer months, and into this autumn, I have meditated nearly every day. Feelings of Love and the bond we all share have grown stronger within me. I am closer to the universe as a whole, but I still feel separated from individuals.

            Politics, sports, gossip, news programs, and most TV shows and movies have little or no interest to me now. I have discovered what is truly important in our existence, but because many people still focus on the trivial aspects of society, I am unable to relate. My interactions with people are pleasant, and I genuinely care about those I am speaking with, but there is no connection.

            I have changed in ways I never expected. My coworkers tell me I am much more pleasant. The owners of my rental house say I am happier. My mother says I am more at peace. This is all good, but there is a fact that I can’t ignore: I spend most of my time alone now.

            Change is inevitable. Change is necessary. But change does not guarantee immediate utopia, not even good change. My discovery of the true nature of our existence led to an alienation of my wife. I look at people when I am running around town and I tilt my head, confused because I can no longer relate.

            There are days when I wonder if this path I chose is worth it. We are told to focus on the Now. But when I do so, and I see a Now filled with isolation, I can’t help but wonder why I have done this. Am I doomed to walk a lonely road?

            I sometimes enter a meditation session with these thoughts, but by the time I finish, the answer is always the same: Be Love. Nothing else matters. In time, even as the old doors have closed, you will find new doors opening. This is your transition. When you have found yourself, others will find you.

            Yes, things have changed, and I have lost or walked away from people and interests that were once important to me. But out of those ashes, I have created new interests and new projects. I have written four books, with a fifth on the way, all sharing my experiences. I created an online music station to share happy music filled with Love. I watch TV shows that are happy and optimistic. I volunteer my time with a local radio station. I go to my mother’s house once a month to help her with cleaning and repairs. And I am even beginning to search for someone new with whom I can share this path I now travel.

            Yes, my change has been tumultuous. But it has also been wondrous. And while I will never be what I once was, and certain people will never speak to me again, my senses are now open to the Love of the universe and the beautiful Light that is in each and every one of us. In time, I know I will find others who understand. And when I do, we will share our journeys.

Be Love. Be Light. Be patient. Have faith. The universe will take care of the rest. This is what change – and loss – has taught me.

-Simon Skiles

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