I’ve enjoyed sixty-three Christmases with family and friends. Most of them were at home in the suburbs just south of Vancouver, and in the charming old heart of Vienna. A few were in rural India. One was in New Jersey, and one in North Carolina. Although all of these occasions bring back colourful memories of abundance and joy, one of the most memorable happened when I was, internally and externally, quite down and out — at the bottom of a long dive that was about to transform into a steady ascent that is still bringing me higher and higher today. Forty years ago, Christmas 1981 (before portable telephones, personal computers, The Internet, etc.) I was living in a ‘shack by the railroad track’, on the edge of a wealthy neighbourhood. At this time of my life I used to have my place open to parties with local peers on the weekends. On Monday I would cash-in all the beer bottles to buy a bit of food for the week. My fridge was always empty (except for all the alcohol from Friday to Sunday). On this occasion I came back to my humble home late Christmas evening and opened the fridge for some reason. I can’t describe to you my utter surprise when I FOUND IT PACKED FULL OF EVERY IMAGINABLE FOOD! Although I tried to find out who did it, none of my many smiling friends would admit to doing the deed. I still don’t know. When I moved back to Canada twenty years later, a mature married man who had traveled the world and enjoyed undreamed of wonderful experiences, it was about a year before I ran into one of the old crowd (back in the 1970s, a couple hundred teenagers, and then young adults, in North Delta). My heart sprang open and my chest was filled with gravity-defying mirth! Then that same day I ran into three more old buddies in various locations, between ten and thirty kilometers apart, something I consider nothing less than a miracle. (As a result I ended up organizing a reunion that brought about a hundred and fifty of us back together for a nostalgic gathering.)
One thing that life has taught me is that Friendship is the highest form of love (collective consciousness). Even in a family, if the members aren’t ‘friends’, there’s no real bond. May the whole world become a family of best friends.
Long, long ago in Canada, when I, as a small child, was hiding in my bedroom listening to the drunken fights of my parents; or, at fifteen, hurrying terrified through a dark suburban neighbourhood seeking rescue as my first massive dose of LSD ripped through my brain; or, as a young adult, begging for coins on a city street or curled up on the concrete under newspapers, trying to catch glimpses of my unreachable dreams,
I could never have suspected that I would someday be enjoying a good book in the living room of my homestead on the other side of the world, loved and respected and at peace with my soul and the universe.
It all comes from within us, every bountiful drop of life manifesting.
Seek the silence of the present moment whence abundance springs.
Union is the key to the front door.
Life is a journey. Step out of the pain shadows into the comforting light And always carry your true home in that beautiful heart of yours.
Victoria:
‘We were reminiscing about Cabella. Our daughter Joy said “For us children, Uncle Eddie was King” and “When I grow up I’m going to follow his tradition of making all the children happy.” Then she told us about the coins you used to bury in the sandpit and how they found enough to buy an ice cream, and other lovely stories and memories.’
36 years ago today I crossed an essential threshold and embarked on an epic journey …
into enlightenment.
Almost every day since the 20th of April, 1982, I’ve been able to attain clarity, and briefly glimpse blissful Reality through the instrument of my central nervous system, and the state of thoughtless awareness.
The upward spiral unfolds, with wonderful surprises arising just around every curve.
More than anything else, I wish this for you.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
(for full-size headphones or bass intense speaker system!)
In separation have I suffered long, But now am glorified in the eternal bliss of Union.
And from my core, That once was small, The sound of Light Expands to all.
Never will I shrink again Into a ball of doubt and pain. Forever forth, in inner sky, I spread my wings and upward fly.
All Life pulsates within my breast.
I have become The hollow drum.
~Ed Saugstad 20 April 2018
—special thanks to Linda Dzus (wife of one of my old best buddies, Doug) who took this amazing photo in their neighbourhood on Mayne Island, British Columbia, the oasis that I briefly took refuge in after attaining self-realisation, 36 years ago—
‘The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say’….
For the period of about a year-and-a-half after I finally found out how to actually meditate in April 1982 (having put in much effort already for eight years, without benefit) and I moved away from the party neighbourhood of my youth, there seem to be no photos of my amazing progress. Now, by chance, I saw THAT Ed, exactly thirty-four birthdays ago, strolling along with a wedding procession in the heart of New Delhi!
I had arrived alone at 2:00 a.m. in humid Bombay two weeks before, after an exhausting series of flights, with an overweight suitcase and a phone number. It was the first international journey in my quarter century of life on Earth. (Little did I guess then that I would return to India more than twenty times!) Someone back home in Vancouver had just bought my ’65 Chevy panel van, enabling me to join my new yogi friends on the India tour. A kindly airport police officer helped me reach the others, already a huge, international group of pilgrims, and that very evening I met Shri Mataji, the founder and teacher of Sahaja Yoga meditation, on the first of many joyful occasions over the coming days, years and decades, in various countries.
Among the many memorable events in Delhi was our viewing of the new Gandhi movie in the cinema that it had world premiered in just nine weeks before. (As a girl, Shri Mataji had spent time with Gandhi at his ashram, where he would sometimes implement Her advice on spiritual issues.) I remember walking out of that air-conditioned building and looking up at the hot, wide blue sky, realizing that those historic happenings had taken place not long ago under this very canopy.
I was lucky to be among those few of us from Canada (at that time there were only a handful of people practicing Sahaja Yoga in North America) that were invited to stay for a few days with Shri Mataji in Her daughter’s house. Several massive public programs were held throughout the city, and I attended my first puja, which celebrated Shivaratri at that time. At the compound where we all met each day, someone organized a cake and candles 🎂, and some new friends sang Happy Birthday to me that third day of February … so long ago, now! I drank lots of yummy chai there, discovering too late that the caffein was brutal on my sensitive liver. We also travelled up to the Himalayan foothills, where I saw some Indian girls enjoy snow for the first time. I spent that wonderful month in India without getting sick, a bit of a miracle (although as soon as I got back to the West I cleared out quite thoroughly!)
I still feel all that as a solid building block in my evolution, and this unexpected window view now brings a fresh breeze to grownup Ed.💨
(And, adding an interesting twist to the perspective: I happen to be turning 59 now, the same age Shri Mataji was when we first met back then!)
Shri Mataji gave each of us a present that afternoon (6 Feb 1983)
They were original Indian artworks. Somehow I managed to hold on to mine (the only thing I have left from my early twenties). It now hangs in my little art-studio in our homestead in the Vienna Woods:
… still waiting for the collective state of enlightenment and benevolence to manifest all over the world (that’s increasing, but doesn’t show up often in the mainstream media)
Here’s a scary, heavy-handed suppression by local authorities that I came away from unharmed, thirty-six years ago:
(from the University of British Columbia newspaper)
“Yes, there are many who would shape the world according to their own limited conception of morality and justice. And so, as for you my friend: into what sterile mold would you have us fit?”
Self-Help 