R: I want to summarize your life and mine if that is OK. We can always come back to the details later.
S: That's fine with me Roberto, go ahead.
R: In the beginning of your employment with Kamaswami you were detached and
never took business seriously. You enjoyed relating to everyone and seemed to
like people. You learned about the art of love from Kamala but you weren't
really in love with her. You two became best friends. You both had an ability
to detach from peoples problems and life in general. You didn't really have
the ability to love as the common people did. As the years passed, you became
rich and successful in business, and you took on a decadent, consumptive life
style. You drank, gambled and weren't as forgiving and generous as you were in
your early days with Kamaswami. You didn't laugh any more and your soul had
become sick. The inner voice that had always guided you became silent. You had
become addicted to gambling for large sums of money.
Is that a fairly accurate portrayal of your life during that period?
S: Yes it is. What was happening in your life while I was doing that?
R: I had quit my job and became successful in auto racing. My ex-partner and
I won major championships in two different kinds of auto racing. I was at the
top of my field. I had this thought that kept running through my mind about
the mind-body connection and some sort of dream about spiritual unity, what
ever that was. I thought I would take some Tai-Chi classes but I never got
around to it. I left my partner and career behind and took a modern dance
class. I ventured off to Nepal and India to study Buddhism for a couple of
months and when I returned I continued to visit every guru who came through
Los Angeles and got into the human potential movement. I was living in Venice,
California. It was a very diversified community with many artists. It was
during the sexual revolution of the 1960's and 70's. Needless to say, I really
got into the sexual revolution and free love. I was also learning to rebuild
houses. I expanded my dance classes to include ballet and Afro-Cuban. I was
having a great time. I was expanding my life and mind. I fell in love and was
having a great love affair. It got pretty decadent and I had to stop it.
My mother died shortly there after and I got really depressed for quite a
while. I only realized how much she meant to me after she was gone.
By the way, did you ever miss your mother and father? Did you think about
returning to see them?
S: I hardly ever thought about them. I guess I was just too self absorbed.
R: I moved to northern California and did some building and continued to be
involved in the human potential movement.
I had some really hard times, grieving my mothers death and being depressed
for whatever reason. I compare the way I was feeling at the time to how you
felt when you arrived at the river after leaving the town. I felt like I was
at the end of the line, the end of my life. I started taking a stress
reduction class and my life started to change. I probably
did that for about 4 years until the class was discontinued.
We were both well into our forties and had overindulged ourselves. We were
paying the price. Our souls were dying, alas!, only to be reborn. I feel like
we have good Karma my friend. I also believe the love my mother bestowed on me
while she was alive helped me through this crisis.
Siddhartha, I feel so blessed to have met you and to be able to have this
dialog. Isn't the sky beautiful?
S: Yes it is and the heater is really helping my comfort level.
Do you want to continue?
R: Yes, thanks. So your rebirth took place rather suddenly. You had hit
bottom and wanted to die. You had left Kamala, the town, friends and
possessions behind. You went to the river and fell asleep under a tree. When
you awoke your friend Govinda was by your side and you had a new outlook on
life.
When I was in my funk, as I will call it, I was in my late forties. About
three months before my fiftieth birthday I started to have these thoughts and
this phrase started running through my mind, "I am leaving my fucked forties
and heading toward the fabulous fifties." I felt great on my fiftieth
birthday. Things got a lot better in my life after that. I still had low
level anxiety.
My turning point came when I went to Mexico to do some volunteer work on a
nutrition project. An old friend had loaned me a book called, "A Path With
Heart by Jack Kornfield," and it had been laying around my house unread for a
year or so. I put in into my bag as I was packing. When I got to Mexico I
started reading it. It was really beautiful. It introduced me to Vipassana
meditation. It was a lot more realistic form of meditation for Westerners that
the Tibetan techniques I had studied in Nepal twenty years earlier. I started
meditating everyday in Mexico and when I returned to the U.S. I started going
to Spirit Rock Meditation Center where Jack Kornfield was one of the teachers.
This is where my latest rebirth started. Since I have been there my life has
changed for the better. My anxiety is gone and I feel appreciative of life on
a daily basis. The teachers are frequently talking about being in the present
moment because that is all we really have. We don't have the past and we don't
know if we have the future or not. We can die at any moment.
So my rebirth happened over a period of a year or so and yours happened in
one day.
We both seem to be content with this simple life style we are living
currently. What to you think that is all about?
S: I believe that we are lucky and that the human spirit is an incredible
force. Perhaps it has something to do with our age or the fact that we have
both spent a lot of time alone and become comfortable with ourselves, without
as many outer worldly distractions as others need or desire. I feel like we
have been able to transcend the world of appearances, our egos and get in
touch with our souls. We are doing the inner work rather than outer work. I
also believe our body chemistry changes and with those changes comes less
striving. The sum of our knowledge also increases along the way, hopefully,
with some wisdom included.
We both have the ability to earn money and live a much higher profile life
style. Do you have any desire to return to that type of life?
R: None whatsoever. I believe you once referred to it as a soft, well
upholstered hell. I have always enjoyed being an individual and living in a
way different than most of society.
I am trying to be an authentic human being living an authentic life. Ideally,
I like to try to stand for truth, health and love. Somehow I know that we
humans have a tendency to deceive ourselves and that truth is really a
subjective experience. Sometimes when people ask me what I am interested in,
I say, I am interested in community and a sense of unity. I feel like unity is
important to you also. Is that true?
S: Spiritual unity, the unity of all things and love are at of the root of
the peace and joy I have been experiencing at this point in my life. What's
it all about, Roberto?
R: I believe you covered it in the answer to my last question but I will give
you a couple of quotes that have helped me to understand life better and live
more fully. Joseph Campbell said, "The purpose of life is to live and be
alive; it is not to understand or try to understand it's meaning." The Chinese
fortune cookie said, "the dream of happiness is true happiness." You and the
Buddha have helped me understand unity. I have always felt like love and
compassion were the most important human values there are. Siddhartha, I just
felt a wave of blissful feelings move through my body and with them a sense of
deep gratitude for our mentor H. H.. It's getting late would you like to Om
for a while?
Siddhartha and I chanted Om for a while and afterwards I thanked him for all
the love and insight he and H. H. had brought into my life. He told me how
beautiful our conversation and meeting had been. We expressed our love and
appreciation for each other, hugged and said good night. I turned off the
heater and returned to my van for a wonderful nights sleep.
April 1998
Written by Roberto Skinner
e-mail: Delacres@aol.com