You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. That sentiment by English poet and painter William Blake [1757-1827] has been a source of great comfort for me. I’ve also heard it as: “The road of excess leads to the palace of wisdom.” I can’t say I live in the palace of wisdom, but I’m surely no stranger to the road of excess. And not just because I’m a recovering alcoholic of nearly 30 years.
Somewhere along the line, perhaps even before I was born, I was vaccinated with the propensity to search for the ultimate in things. For instance:
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- The principle that most determines the well-being of any person or institution.
- The definition of health that applies to all people and communities since the dawn of time.
- The terms that define the spirit of the universe.
- The fundamental aspiration of every human being.
- And on the silly side, the world’s most powerful vanity license plate; or the one book I would want with me while stranded on a desert island (Shipbuilding for Dummies; everything else I would need to know I already carry inside of me, accessible through my breath).
Explorations like these are all driven by a passion to understand myself in the context of eternal truths.
As a child, this passion drew to me a ton of conflict that I have come to realize was so necessary because it forced me to look for answers within rather than without––and be willing to view things differently than others did. I spent three-quarters of high school in a seminary hoping to stumble into God, and left with a level of disappointment that I didn’t appreciate was among the best gifts I’d ever received.
It wasn’t that the world around me was mean-spirited. It was simply that the guidance I received from others––parents, clergy, teachers primarily––focused on behavior, getting the approval of others, and fitting into society. I wasn’t against any of that so much as I was aware that it wasn’t remotely enough for me.
And more than that, such an orientation felt dangerous because it was about stuff other than the essence of life. I wanted rapture, God. I felt it in my heart the minute I was born, and was searching for it in the world ever since.
Basically I said I can’t play. This isn’t my world. For a kid, there’s virtually no support for that position. It’s a frightening place to live. Soon, my fear turned emphatic. No one will tell me what to do. I just couldn’t allow myself to be controlled. I was fighting for my life. As an asthmatic fights for air. I had no language. Only an impulse to resist.
That resistance included just about every kind of excess this side of murder and enlightenment. It wasn’t all painful. Aversion to norms and a growing reliance on intuition also developed of some useful problem solving and communication skills–– e.g., the penchant for exploring the big picture.
It took me many years to realize that under my resistance was the desire for someone to guide me. That person just hadn’t shown up yet. Someone who was grounded enough and expansive enough to touch my heart and relieve me of the need to say “not this, not this” to so much. Someone who knew God, not in their mind but in every cell of their being. Someone who could say with authenticity, “Steve, relax, here’s the deal.”
I found that person in my late 30s. The book “Autobiography of a Yogi” fell in my lap figuratively speaking. I read it non-stop. Before I finished, I knew, “This is my guy.” He was the living reality I had carried in my heart since before I was born. All paths are paths to God, he taught, because, ultimately, there is no other place for the soul to go. Knowing God is not a matter of belief. It’s a matter of action: practices employed by saints and sages since forever. The only difference between you and me, he said, is that I have put in the work.
He’d been dead nearly 30 years when we met. His name is Paramahansa Yogananda. He’s my guru, my guide to God. He’s the person in whose vibration I learned that the spirit of the universe is playful, loving, and deep––and that everything is a gift serving our liberation.
I once heard a monk disciple of his say, “Unless you are fanatically positive, you will never know your own soul.” Given my propensity for the ultimate, that statement might very well be the sign that hangs over the entrance to the palace of wisdom.