There Is A Place Where You Are Not Alone

Last week, I drove to the North Carolina mountains to get my children, through snow and ice, hazardous driving they said, they were right, skidding, a peeled grape in a sweaty palm, some invisible hand playing with us like a spinning wheel in a children’s game — but these are my children, I think, and it’s no game, as we slide toward the embankment, my hands on the useless wheel, my mind skating away, my hurried prayer: oh God, put us back on the road, in the flow, in the dream of time moving like cars, put me back, Lord, in control.

Back home, safely home, I think about control, skidding out of control, slip-sliding away, fantasies like ice slicks covered by pretty, powdery snow, the broken glass of life, the mangled dreams — who’s driving anyway? Did I get us home? The miles, the trials, the long and winding road, does it lead home? Did I ever leave home?

“There is only one dreamer dreaming the same dream over and over,” Hugh Prather writes, “each time taking a different part. When he has taken all the parts, the dream will be over.” He then adds: “Of course I am alone in the dream; it is a dream of separation.”

I discovered There Is a Place Where You Are Not Alone on a balmy night last spring, when only my heart was frozen; the invisible hand led me to the right book at the right time.

Prather — a counsellor and a teacher who has worked in the fields of alcoholism, divorce, suicide, rape, battered women, and child abuse — is best known for his earlier book, Notes to Myself, a diary of observations about his “struggle to become a person.” Ram Dass said you need to become a somebody before you can become a nobody; Prather has done his homework, and now he’s telling us what it’s like when the ice melts. He writes about love, and the power of forgiveness, and his heart is a quiet pool in which you see his love reflected. What can I say? It shines.

Thanks to Hugh Prather for permission to print these excerpts.

— Ed.

“Rely on yourself” and “Do not rely on yourself” alone are not conflicting ideas. One must rely on what he is, but what he is is not alone.

If I seek an advantage, if I wish harm for another, if I base my happiness on someone else’s inferior position, if I measure myself, my wife, my sons, in any way against another family, if I confide, if I cherish, if I criticize, if I praise, one result is inevitable: fear. I will now be thinking of myself as not one thing more than this death-bound fleck of bone and flesh with its little life and name and its meaningless little history. I will believe I am alone and vulnerable in every possible way. And I will think that any object in the world has the potential to snatch from me this pitifully small time and pride to which I still cling.

There is only one dreamer dreaming the same dream over and over, each time taking a different part. When he has taken all the parts, the dream will be over.

Of course I am alone in the dream: it is a dream of separation.

Everyone I see in the dream is someone I have been. Can I forgive my past? If not, the dream continues.

We do not exclaim to each other what a beautiful day it is if the last fifty-six days have been cloudless. A single beautiful day is a comparison, and to pray for one beautiful day is to ask for two things. Anything longed for in this world has two sides, and to ask for one is to demand the other as well. That is why praying for worldly experiences must always yield distressing results.

I have made my experience by myself, and there is no exit from it. I am its source. I can deceive myself and believe that the misery is not mine, but I cannot stop feeling miserable. Only a wish that embraces the whole of me will allow an answer to come to this endless shuffling of loss. It doesn’t matter if momentarily I feel guilty for having sought an advantage and now have wished misfortune on myself in payment. That maneuver will pay for nothing because the basic wish has not changed. When differences are no longer interesting to me, and I want instead an experience of cooperation without compromise, then I will see the real splendor of undivided caring. Now there is no wish, and therefore no will, for any other way of looking at all those who people my experience.

We all still need a little error mixed with our truth. We are not yet ready to take it straight. Since this is so apparent, why quarrel with which error another chooses to mix in?

Having glimpsed the power contained in forgiveness, I now find myself engaging in a curious form of its denial. I am behaving as if it were much easier to forgive others their faults than their being unforgiving. I see I have made another “sin” to replace all the others. In effect, I am saying that being unforgiving is the one offense that should be held in my mind and watched over until I know that the guilty party has been amply punished. Forgiveness means “to let go.” Of what? Of everything.

“Rely on yourself” and “Do not rely on yourself” alone are not conflicting ideas. One must rely on what he is, but what he is is not alone.

My state of mind leads me on a string of encounters with people in the same mental state. This is also true of Gayle’s and my communication with other couples. If we are conflicted, each couple we encounter appears to have a relationship that needs fixing in some way. And when we are at peace, our world of relationships rests with us. My mind can never be a recipient only. It is at all times a participant and contributor. It is half a truth, and therefore an inaccurate interpretation, that “the vibes here are bad” or that “there is a lot of negative energy in this place.” I do not find myself somewhere by accident. I have come together with certain others to exchange a thought that can be clearly recognized by all. How would I learn what it is I want if it were not for the inescapable fact that everyone around me is holding up a picture of my mental state?

Surely no one can escape noticing that the clarity of his perception is always increasing. Yet this also implies that no one sees with total accuracy as yet. As I sit here going over my diary, I am surprised at how immature were my descriptions of “the truth” even a year ago. Since this has always happened why am I not surprised instead at my present certainty? If what I am looking at now I will soon see with much greater clarity, how can I pretend to be able to accurately describe it? How can I honestly say, “I know”? The only thing I can state with certainty about my present view of life is that it is not fully accurate and that I do not know where the inaccuracies lie. I could be wrong about anything and am probably wrong to some degree about everything. This would have to include any book I accept as my authority. Even if the book does contain the truth, can I honestly claim to understand with complete accuracy even one thing it is saying? Why then cite it as full justification for my statements? Is Truth so impotent that it would need my immature view of it as its defense?

It doesn’t matter that you have been distracted. Return now to this single goal: peace within.

Today, as every day, you have agreed to sit in a special movie theater and play a game. The theatre is very comfortable and is equipped with the ultimate in “sensurround”: it stimulates every sensory experience appropriate to the script. On the screen is playing a story of your life which you never remember seeing. Everything has been made so realistic that you could easily forget that it is just a movie, but the point of the game is to not forget. Anytime you start to decide what you, the main character, should do next, special equipment will detect this, and a pleasant voice will say, “It is only a movie, and you cannot decide what the main character will do next because the script is already written. So please sit back and enjoy it.” If you will add one more fact to this exercise, it will be true to life: you wrote the script.

As you know, God can dress up as anybody. Is there anybody He is not dressed up as? So now do you see how innocent what just happened was? Its purpose was not at all what you first thought.

There is a place where you are not alone, where your voice sings with every voice that has ever sung, or ever will sing. In this place you know that no encounter was wasted and that no face passed you by unnoticed in the crowd. Here you are allowed to choose again, and this time you decide not to discount or overlook anyone. You move quickly past no one merely to get to someone else who pleases you more. Now you cannot see a single one you do not welcome, and in the harmlessness of your vision, all return your gentle gaze.

It doesn’t matter that you have been distracted. Return now to this single goal: peace within.

Divorce

The person who is convinced that a body is all there is to him does not see love as one, but as divided in both kind and number by as many bodies as populate the earth. To that one, love itself will appear to pass from his life as another body leaves, and his situation may seem worse than dying. For me to be of any comfort to him, I must recognize that for him this is the circumstance in which he finds himself. Attempts to inform or correct him will serve only to break communication, for at the moment his safety and happiness appear to be tied to how another body chooses to behave or whether it is near.

However, he has not succeeded in putting happiness into another’s hands, but only thinks he has. The time will come when he will recognize that he has made himself helpless. My part is to be for him another choice. It is not to choose for him.

Now the time has come for me to place my trust in this one who grieves, for he will not grieve long. Love has not deserted him and possibly he will see it shining still within my eyes. If not mine, it will be another’s, and meanwhile I will not make the same mistake by assigning his role as one of gratitude to me. It is gift enough to be friend to one who has been friend to others, and so prove to myself the fairness and closeness of love to us both.

An Example

A man’s wife told him that she believed she was in love with his sister. She said that she and the woman were sexually intimate and although she was confused as to what her real feelings were, she thought she wanted a divorce.

At first he was conflicted between his desire to keep his marriage and what he understood were the teachings of his religion. He believed that his church’s position was that what his wife was doing was unforgivable, but he did not know what he was supposed to do about that. His wife and sister did not share his view of their behavior and did not think it needed “correcting.”

When he called me he expressed his deep confusion over what to do. He said that he continued to love his wife and sister deeply despite his outrage over their behavior, and that he found himself struggling to maintain the marriage, even though he was not certain it was best for either him or his children.

In the months that followed, the outward situation changed only slightly, but the man’s mental approach underwent a fundamental shift. In a recent conversation he said that he now felt that his marriage was providing a good atmosphere in which to bring up his children, and he was relatively peaceful about his wife and sister’s relationship, which he assumed was now platonic, although he did not know for sure. He said he now had little interest in the attitude he would have to reassume and the time he would have to spend “looking for sin” in order to find out what was happening between them.

I asked him to tell me what were the changes in his thinking over the last several months. Here is a summary of what he said: he did not know if he and his wife would stay married, but that was no longer his principal concern. He had found a broader purpose, and he was now content to trust the events of his life.

Communication, he said, occurs when one places his thoughts into friendly hands. If he perceives the hands as unfriendly, his efforts will not serve to unite. If he is concerned with the consequences of his communication, if he either hopes it will manipulate or fears it will disrupt, then he has decided beforehand that he is unlike the one with whom he speaks.

Always talk as if to a friend. And do not decide for another what is the proper response.

Who can say that someone is not going through what he needs to? Who can say he is certain of the outcome? Who knows that if he were this person he would not do the same and for good reason? Who can see without distortion just what guides another? And who would claim no connection, no involvement, no responsibility in what happens to someone within his own experience?

No one is neutral. Therefore no one is capable of judging. It is not in reality an option.

Field Notes

We can look back even now and see how every step we took was meant to bless us. The events that made no sense at the time are beginning to add up, and we notice a soft helpfulness glowing like the coming sun from behind all the dark hills we have climbed over. Yet we think this event is somehow different. But is that true? Let us wait a moment and be still. Our interpretation does not have to be right. It is really possible that this too is only our next step home and is not the bitter ending that it seems.

Notice this: There is a curious pattern to the encounters you are now having, the chance meetings, the phone calls, and those who come to mind. Have you seen the gentle preparation you have been given for these exchanges? Have you recognized how appreciated is your newly discovered lack of fear by all these people who are “happening” to cross your path?

In order to hold someone guilty, you must also hold tightly to the injury that you are claiming he caused.

As a child, possibly you crawled along a wall with several windows, and you may have believed the openings above you were bringing you light. Now as you walk along the same wall, you know these are only sheets of glass passing before the sun. Love has not passed out of your life, even though the body through which you last remember its coming has gone. Look up for just an instant. There is another face, and still another, waiting to greet you. You may think it is only an old friend, or a new one, or some chance encounter as you go about your work. But Love itself has not moved, and it knows a way to come to you that you can fully recognize and share.

A Final Note On Separating And Divorce

A time comes when it is recognized that nothing is gained by seeking a new partner because nothing is lost by remaining with the old one. There quickly follows a second realization: that you are not with this one by accident, and much more than romantic love or friendship is held in the foundation of your relationship.

Love has not passed out of your life, even though the body through which you last remember its coming has gone.

Who, then, is your spiritual partner? He is the one you are with at the time you begin to suspect the limitless value of all relationships. Possibly it is true that there is no one who would not bless you, and you him, in a lifetime partnership. And certainly there is more than one such partnership for everyone. Yet the one you are with is not just anyone, and this becomes increasingly clear as you continue together. Remember always the gift of thanks you owe this one who has come to you so often. Perhaps he is your spouse, your friend or a relative. That is not why he is there. Divorce in any form has nothing to offer you. You do not need to pursue that illusion again. Nor is it possible for you to be a victim of another’s desire to pursue it. Wait in love for this one who loves you deeply. Do not be deceived by the change in form your relationship may take. All forms change. A spiritual partner is chosen by you. Your will, because it is not yours alone, will not be rescinded.

Suicide

The person in a suicidal depression is convinced of the effectiveness of attack. The last thing he needs is for me to deepen his conviction. He is insane only because he thinks that love does not exist for him. Therefore it is no accident I am here. Love is not an argument. It is a gentle presence content to be where it is.

My function is to be sane and to be a friend to the strong core of sanity in him. It is not to convince him that the core does not exist. A great deal more than madness is at work here. His point of view, which was not arrived at frivolously, is entirely reasonable. I would accomplish nothing by attempting to weaken his belief in reason or to sell him on the inadequacy of his own mind. He has looked “out there” and seen nothing worth pursuing. He has sought to be honest with himself about this, and consequently he is very near to seeing something new. Which of us sees it first is not important. It is just as likely to be him.

He thinks he has been unfairly, but quite effectively, attacked by others, by his body and by life itself, and now he toys with the idea of taking into his own hands the power that he believes attack contains and, by using it against himself, put an end to the misery that otherwise seems endless. He is mistaken. Attack cannot offer him anything worth having. Nor does it offer me anything in my attempt to help him.

Guilt is the belief that through self-attack I can improve myself. I cannot. And it is equally mistaken to suppose I can help someone who is thinking of suicide by making him feel more guilty than he already feels; for example, by “explaining” to him how real and deep the hurt would be to those he would leave behind.

His mistake is that he has not questioned the effectiveness of attack. I cannot do that for him, but I can turn away from assaulting him or myself within my own mind and, instead, use this as a time for stillness, listening and trust.

Guilt is the belief that through self-attack I can improve myself. I cannot.

My concern for him, if it lacks trust, is an expression of my disbelief in his instinct for wholeness and peace, and as such can only communicate hopelessness. It is his mind that will save him. Nor am I at war with the contents of his mind. I have come to do nothing more than walk hand in hand with his sanity, his reason and his love.

Insofar as my mind touches his, let it extend trust. In seeing his core of internal health, I will recognize my own, and side by side we will walk away from murder.

An Example

A young Navajo boy had saved his money so he could leave the reservation and move to Santa Fe to study art. He believed the Indian School had promised him a room and tuition, but after moving here he discovered that he would have to pay all expenses himself. When I was asked to see him, his money had run out, he had left school and had been unable to find work as an artist. He believed his choice was to return to the reservation or kill himself, and he had just made one attempt on his life.

As I tried to talk to him, he would suddenly become violent and break windows or tear up his paintings in front of me. When this would happen, I would go outside and sit on the hood of my car and wait. Then he would come to his door crying and say he wanted to talk. This continued until finally he took me behind his house and showed me his hands and a pile of lumber he had broken with his bare fists. We went in and sat on his bed and he took off his shirt to show me where he had repeatedly slashed his chest with a knife. He was crying out for help in every way he could, but I had no idea how to help him.

Suddenly he pulled out his knife and in a strange voice began talking about how “they should never have made these things.” I knew the knife was going into either him or me. And that is when something changed.

For the first time that day I saw — not as a concept but as fact — that this was our problem, that we were in this together.

By the end of the next day the boy had a job and he had repaired his house. He seemed calm, happy and determined.

I am convinced that nothing I said or did had affected him. Our differences in age and background were so extreme as to almost preclude that possibility. But I know that the turning point came at the same time I recognized that I was not there to solve his problem, and I am certain that feeling of our being joined communicated itself in some way.

This story had a “happy ending.” It is a mistake, however, to believe that if someone chooses to take his life, those around him have failed. More than once I have been told by people I have worked with that they could sense I was not afraid they would kill themselves because not once did I try to talk them out of it.

That was not the reason I was calm. I never know what a person is going to do, and there have been times I was certain that someone had made the decision to go, and later found that he had not. I am sure that what these people sensed was not my foreknowledge of their decision, but my faith that they knew what was best for them, and that their decision would reflect this. I do not believe it is a mistaken interpretation. I am not in a position to judge whether it is best that a person live. But he is. I am there only to help him see that he is innocent. Our mutual freedom and respect are the only things we have to give each other, and they are enough.

Field Notes

All deaths are suicides. No one dies before he chooses. No one begins a life without knowing how he will end it.

Death is not a blessing in disguise. The person who dies does not so disguise it. But anyone who judges it as selfish and hurtful disguises it within his own mind until the time he is ready to see its true intents.

The manner in which we die is not a coincidence. It is ultimately appropriate, a just-right symbol, but never does it indicate guilt or fallibility. Its meaning is known and determined by the one who dies and not by onlookers. No one can interpret the meaning of another’s death.

The last blessing we will confer through this body will be given during the act of dying. It is our departing gift but not the end of giving. It is carefully considered and all its consequences are foreseen. The damage it may appear to cause will not be seen as damage for long, and the person who dies knows this.

The interpretation of death as the destruction of a child of God is an evil interpretation. Yet, as an event, appearing to die is an act of no greater meaning than any other act. It can be seen in the light of innocence or in the bitter half-light of judgement.