Just before we left for Israel a friend wrote to me about how depressed he was because he couldn\u2019t come on the Israel trip. I know the feeling. I have a vivid memory of 1988 when everyone was leaving on PAT IV (the trip and PAT training in Egypt and Israel) and I couldn\u2019t go because I didn\u2019t have the money. I hated that feeling of restriction so much that, to everyone\u2019s surprise, I actually started working. <\/p>\n
J-R had a brilliant way of pushing us hippies and ascetics and bums into full participation in the world. Back in the 1980s I had a dream with him where I said, \u201cSometimes I feel guilty, like I could be doing more.\u201d He said \u201cDoing more? You don\u2019t do ANYTHING.\u201d We both laughed and I agreed. Then he said, \u201cIt could be fun for you to do more.\u201d Typical J-R: Uncap the judgment, let it go, create a free state so a free choice can be made, and then tee up the choice. Only choice\u2014no force.<\/p>\n
Today is the day for the boat trip on the Sea of Galilee. We take the short walk from the kibbutz to the edge of the Sea (actually a freshwater lake) and board two boats that are modeled after the wooden vessels that fishermen used at the time of Jesus. <\/p>\n
It seems like each time I come on these trips to Israel there is some deeper connection with Jesus that sneaks in. There is a point on the lake where an intense peace enters\u2014so intense that I drop into a meditative state and just want to lie down and close my eyes. But I have to do photos, so I tune into that state while I\u2019m walking around. Not quite as pleasurable, but since J-R pushed me out of the womb I\u2019ve learned that I can be in two places at once, in the world but not of it. <\/p>\n
It occurs to me that we must be getting close to the place where Jesus walked on the water. I look over at Michael Hayes and he\u2019s zonked out in some kind of rapture. So are some of the other people on the boat. I take it as a confirmation. I ask Michael later on what he was experiencing and he won\u2019t comment\u2014another confirmation.<\/p>\n
I have no proof of course, but the extent to which the experience affects my physical body and all corners of my consciousness is entirely different from the way a figment of my imagination affects me. It\u2019s a force far greater than my imagination, and it has a loving sweetness to it, a power without force, whereas my imagination extends to a hierarchy starting with sensual beauty (whose components are cute women, nature and art, in that order), then desire and, last on the list, ambition.<\/p>\n
People often think of peace as some sort of do-nothing relief from effort (like me in my younger womb-hugging days). It\u2019s actually more like an explosion or a vortex of energy. J-R has talked about this often\u2014peace as an active rather than a passive state. <\/p>\n
I could call the feeling a \u201cpeace explosion\u201d. All around me is nothing but a calm lake that people would normally call \u201cpeaceful\u201d but it\u2019s as though there is a remnant of an explosion, like the place where an asteroid or nuclear bomb had once hit. When you think about it, the force that would enable a human to defy gravity would have to be very dynamic, and it might leave a trace like radiation; or, since everything that\u2019s ever happened is still happening when you subtract the dimension of time, the vortex would have an ongoing permanence. And each time I tune into it, next time\u2019s recognition is easier. <\/p>\n
We normally associate power with explosion, force, pushing-out. But this form of power is a pulling-in. So not only does it differ from my imagination, but it differs from the way I experience power in the world. Like my dream with J-R where I could move to my next step only by accepting what had gone before, this power is held suspended an elastic, invisible force-field of loving acceptance and free choice. It can only be described in paradoxes\u2014an inward-moving explosion? A love-bomb? A marshmallow asteroid? A bazooka made of kittens that shoots ice cream? A nuclear reactor made out of cheesecake? A beautiful woman who\u2019s also quiet and calm? Spirit inhabiting flesh?<\/p>\n
We\u2019re on two boats which come close together for John\u2019s talk about something-or-other. Whenever somebody asks me what he talked about, I tell them it was about God. The words are just a placeholder, and I\u2019m in another place thanks to John\u2019s ability to hold. After the boats we\u2019re on to Capernaum and the remnants of a synagogue where Jesus is said to have taught, and where Peter allegedly lived. To me, it\u2019s vibrating with an otherworldly peaceful harmonic, and putting my hand on the white pillars and walls feels like touching a superhuman presence that is outside of the karma of planet earth.<\/p>\n
Then it\u2019s on to Magdala, alleged home of Mary Magdalene. I don\u2019t feel much of anything there, and the fans that squirt cool mist by the gift shop are a bigger draw for me (and some others) than the sun-baked archaeological site. As we leave, Leigh points out a distant mountain with caves where Jesus is said to have given the inner, esoteric teachings to a smaller group of disciples (see the last photo).<\/p>\n
Afternoon is PAT processes where we learn how to plug into the cheesecake nuclear reactor on our own, unbound by buses and boats, so that we don\u2019t have to traipse around the world feeling up rocks. <\/p>\n
But maybe next time I\u2019ll come back and go to those caves\u2026as J-R often said, \u201cthe eyes are always hungry\u201d.<\/p>\n