Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

That’s About the Size, Where You Put Your Eyes…

I keep thinking about the clown and the saint.

It’s a story shared in Jan Frazier’s “When Fear Falls Away” about an evening when Baba Muktananda (a spiritual teacher and master) was offering darshan (a blessing that is given from a guru to a disciple). Devotees were lined up to have a turn to kneel before Muktananda and receive his gift. A whisp from the feathers he held, fanning the air of enlightenment that circled him, and one could possibly be opened to a window of new consciousness. A heightened connection to God, bestowed.

So in Frazier’s telling, there was this darshan taking place, an air of reverence there for all devotees in this sacred ceremony. Everyone dressed to their best as they prepared to come into the presence of this Master. And as the line moved along, each person making their way to Muktananda, there came into view a clown. Yes, a bonafide clown. Or at least a man dressed up as one. Bright polka dot suit, ruffled collar, white face paint and those huge, red, painted-on lips. His eyes, thick, with expressive clown make-up.

As the story goes, when the clown came before Muktananda, people began to laugh.

“…Everyone in and around the darshan line was laughing…everyone, that is, but Baba. Baba was just swishing his peacock feathers over the crown of the curly orange wig bent before him- just as he did with anyone who came up in the darshan line. Now the clown had raised up on his knees to face Baba. The guru was looking into the clown’s eyes, into the pupils at the centers of the bright red circles like bull’s eyes, looking deeply into this man who had made himself (for whatever reason) into a clown.

Finally, Baba sat back in his chair, seeming a little confused by all the laughter. He leaned down to {his translator} and asked her in their native tongue what everyone was laughing at.

{The translator said} ‘Why Baba, don’t you see? The man is dressed as a clown!’

Then Baba looked again at the man- looked, it may be, with his ordinary eyes, his merely organic eyes. It was only then that he saw the external of the person- the clown costume of him. And then Baba laughed, joining the others in the good time.

…{initially} when Baba looked at that man, he really and truly did not see a clown.”

(excerpt from Jan Frazier’s “When Fear Falls Away“)

This story of the clown and guru keeps coming back to me as I contemplate perception. Was Baba Muktananda looking with his third eye? What was he seeing when he looked at the clown? What was he seeing as he lived his days on earth?

What do each of us see through our own unique filter of perception? Quite possibly, very different worlds, often living the assumption that everyone sees what we see.

As I’ve pondered this clown story, the tune of a little song comes trailing to my mind. Its origins melded with childhood memories, its source, unknown.

That’s about the size
where you put your eyes
that’s about the size of it

With technology on my side, the world-wide web and a search engine bring me to an old segment from Sesame Street. I don’t recall the visuals, I only remember the chorus of the song that I heard as a child on television, probably, 25 years ago. I think Sesame Street was on to something. And I’m glad to see that the sentiment took root within me, still profound today.

Who would have thought that clowns, Sesame Street, and ascended masters could all connect to deliver a profound message on perception. Goes to show…that’s about the size…

Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

Sticky

You think about things when it’s high noon and August, and you’re on your hands and knees in a small, hot laundry room with your head in the dryer.

What got me here was sticky. Gum to be exact. And it seems our family was learning what I thought was a given, the basics of gum protocol 101.

1. Always throw gum in the trash.
2. Once in the mouth, gum stays in the mouth until finished.
3. Never put gum packs in clothing pockets.

In this particular instance, it seems that eight year old Jeb forgot #3 and as I scrubbed the bright pink goo from the dryer’s interior, I realized I’d skipped laundry protocol #1: check pockets.

Jeb would have been the one with his head in the dryer, cleaning, if it weren’t for the fact that he was asleep. Taking a much-needed nap after falling ill at weekend’s end. Seems to me he’d partied just a little too hard in our end-of-summer hurrah. Three late nights, a camp out, and plenty of sugar treats – gum included. It all culminated to a sore throat, no appetite and little energy. I was glad he was resting (school tomorrow, “sick” or not) as I found myself seeking meaning in my little gum-gooed dryer world.

Flashes came. Like how only a day ago, the Bohemian had stepped out of the car in the parking lot, right on to someone’s thick, discarded gum. The warm, green piece making stringy cling to the bottom of his flip-flop.

Jeb and I made the collective “Ugh!” While I took the opportunity for a parental reminder.

“See why it’s important to always throw your gum away?”

And later that night we tried s’mores around the campfire. Except that the marshmallows we had packed warmed to the point of cream in the car ride. The Bohemian and I attempted to cut chunks and roll them onto the roasting sticks. Eager hands moved toward me for graham crackers and chocolate and I somehow got distracted holding one marshmallow stick in my hand. Within seconds I realized I’d dipped the stick just low enough to land on the bent head of the Bohemian, tangling the marshmallow in his hair.

“Oh, no!”

Ever patient, he waited for me to work the blob from his hair, but even once it was detached, a thick piece of white, sugar stickiness glowed on his crown in the firelight.

“You’re going to have to eat that out of his hair, Jess,” a friend laughed.

Absurd at first consideration, it became the most practical, given our location, far from running water in the night. Besides, I guess I felt it was my penance for the oversight. So, yes, I did take a big swig of water and douse the ends of his hair, dissolving – and eating – the marshmallow out.

“See that, Jeb?” my friend chimes in. “Now that’s true love.”

So, there in the dryer, still soft-scrubbing the Pollack-inspired smattering of gum, these thoughts of the sticky theme came to my mind. In these moments, one searches for some meaning to go with aching biceps and beads of sweat.

No real major revelations came. Except that sometimes things get sticky. Try to follow the basic protocols to avoid getting stuck (i.e.: store gum appropriately, check pockets before laundering, travel only short distances with marshmallows in Hawaii, and watch where you let your s’more stick fall). Breathing generally helps, too.

And of course, if you’re the one that gummed it up, make it right. (So Jeb got out of that one, but he is now on gum hiatus for a spell).

In the end, doesn’t it just feel really good to get unstuck? In our little world, the Bohemian’s shoe is clean. His head, marshmallow-free. And that dryer…it’s cleaner than ever.

courtesy of mahalie
Posted on by Jessica Dofflemyer

What’s Left When Fear Falls Away?

I’ve been falling asleep in dim light, grasping a page at a time, to the passages from my birthday book “When Fear Falls Away” by Jan Frazier.

Gifted to me by my friend, The Artist, it chronicles the experience of a woman (and she insists she is quite ordinary) who had a sudden shift in consciousness. She claims that her entire life changed, deep to the core of every moment. That she went from being a woman living in extreme anxiety around repeated cancer scares, to someone that began existing in a state of great peace. That the fear simply went away. And what filled the empty once occupied by fear, was an infinite well of love.

Her book describes this experience, not as one that had a beginning and an end. Not one that had a peak of sorts and then faded. It explains that this shift within her was so authentic and profound that it sustained, no matter the circumstance, no matter the calendar days that passed.

What she tells is that she was a simple woman, filled with lots of fear. She did nothing special except that one night, filled with anxiousness for the next cancer test, she decided to ask. Asking no one deity in particular, she was not religious. She just asked something – that thing that was bigger than herself – if she could stop being afraid. And what she reports is that the fear did indeed go away. Not for a night or a week, but permanently. Frazier’s account describes her journey through this experience, all the while insisting that this awakening is possible for every person.

She recalls a time in life before this shift, when she could simply not believe that she would ever awaken to any kind of divine state. That she could read of masters living in this way, but that it was not accessible to her.

I can relate. Reading her words I reflect on this in my own life. I dwell with my beliefs. Just take a look at my own mind and how it can so instantly jump to “Nahhhh. Not me. I could never really be completely free of fear. I’m not one of those special human beings that could live in a state of grace, 24/7, no matter the outer circumstances. That is a state beyond me. Impossible for what I am capable.”

I realize these thoughts play quietly in the deep recesses. Strong enough to make a song, but sounding low enough that I do not notice them, though they hum assumptions that color my days.

How curious to simply listen to this song. Question it. Feel the freedom of even just considering singing a different tune.

Where else am I closing doors where I could be swinging them full open?

For inspiration, I’m including a quote from Frazier’s book “When Fear Falls Away.”

Here’s to the profound – found – in the every day.

“…The main thing is the experience deep in that has nothing to do with what’s going on around me. Trying to describe it is like trying to speak a language I don’t know: I’m new in this country. But also, it’s hard to put words to, because if I were to just say it like it is, say the way it feels, I fear I would sound immoderate, unseemly. And yet the experience inside is so incredible, it is for that very reason I am compelled to describe it. It is so very important. It is, in fact, the reason we live at all. Not a reason: the reason.

How can I keep quiet about this, self-conscious though it make me?

It’s the joy I refer to. The no-good-reason joy. It’s love that I feel-enormous love, vast, undirected love. Undiluted, unfunneled love. I know of no other way to say it.

I feel large, huge, vast, like what is in me pumps out into the world around me and fills it. Infects it.

It isn’t happiness. It isn’t directed at one particular person or place or idea.

But this isn’t what is most startling. It is the power that has opened to me, because of giving in to this force of love. I feel an enormous power inside-like I’m capable of more than I used to be.

God, I swear this is the best kept secret. Everybody can do it. I know this. I could have done it all my life.

It’s like I read once: The universe exists so God can hide and we can go looking for God. One big game. But the whole time, all we have to do is look. Right there. Right here: in this kitchen, where I sit in my wet socks, my coffee cup beside me, my boots on the floor, snow and mud melting out of the their treads onto the linoleum…”

– Jan Frazier “When Fear Falls Away, The Story of a Sudden Awakening“