Running Salvation

I am a troubled soul. Maybe all souls are troubled but they keep quiet about it. Most alcoholics I know think that they are troubled because they have an "alcoholic personality." I know this idea comes from Bill Wilson, the founder of AA, but I do not agree with it. I think to be human is to have a troubled soul; and alcoholics use alcohol to deal with it.

My spirituality has been what I use to deal with my troubled soul. And I've come to believe it is not my soul that is troubled. It is my ego. So every morning, I have to do something about my ego. My ego is always pissed that life hasn't been that great for it. My ego always hates the people around me. My ego always thinks God is not there.

I did my spiritual work this morning with exactly this outlook on the world. Its funny to spend the evening before feeling the strong call of God to inner silence and then wake up in the morning a complete bear. But, I asked for divine help, "I need to see the light in me."

And so I went running: extremely warm out there, full moon, no T-storms, freshly cut slit in the cuff of my CWX capris made them finally comfortable, not very energetic so I ran slowly. I had about 80 minutes for this run. My mind was mulling over my emotional states and wondering if I am hopelessly depressed, again reviewing the impossibility of re-joining society.

And then the miracle. I can't remember exactly all the thoughts but I'll re-cap. I realized I can only go further into the belief that the world is an illusion and not worry about it. Then I was uplifted with the thought that I would be given whatever I needed for today. So my fear of the future and my difficult employment disappeared. I entered the now and realized God was with me now.

I am in transition from thinking this world is real to know this world is an illusion and identifying with my true self, which is in God. I am in transition from ego relationships to the one real relationship which we all have and are, the beloved Son of God.

Then, I thought, "all I've wanted for a long time was a life of contemplation of God." Contemplation of God is the call I heard at the age of 22 when I was in Israel watching Hassidic Jews pray. Contemplation was the real reason I sought monastic life. Contemplation is the reason I began ultra running. Then the thought came that everything was a gift and contemplating the gifts was contemplating God. This completely diffused my hatred and fear of a certain person. They became gift not enemy (which is the point of spirituality IMO). Nothing more need be done than to realize this. Then it struck me. The reality of God is that I am now in a total embrace of love and everything is gift.

I totally believed this for a brief instant. I saw the light for a brief instant.

Now that was a successful run and it is for enlightenment that I run.