Letter to the Editor

I AM MICHAEL TOMS

Editor,

It's not easy to discover true reality. God knows. I've tried everything. Zazen. Feng Shui. Holy Communion. Tommy John Surgery. I've sweated blood beside Jesus Christ. Shot heroin with Lenny Bruce. Smoked crack with Brigham Young. Anything. Anything to find out who I really am.

Once I heard a wake up call in a Holiday Inn. Another time I saw golfball size hail flatten a saint on the road to Damascus. At the Last Supper, Saint Peter and I did magic mushrooms. I ate dim sum with Lao Tzu and Confucius. Julia Child and I made hash brownies.

Sufiism, self flagellation, ethical investing, heavy drinking, a liver transplant, beading, the Watchtower, affirmations to turn my negatives into positives, recalling past lives, a high fiber diet, fire walking: all these produced insight, showed me my original face before I was born. I saw seas part. Mountains crumble. Bands break up: The Beatles. Genesis. Tower of Power.

I've been busy, busy, busy. I've learned to slow down, speed up, lose myself, find myself, forget myself, memorize the Koran, reject organized religion, keep kosher, keep one point, expand into mystical reality, contract into deep inner life, use sunrise ceremonies, worship the moon, talk to the great apes.

Yes. I've been everywhere. Tried everything. And that's why I'm finally living in the moment, living in a separate reality, being here now, existing beyond space and time, grooving on the bliss, living in total emptiness.

I've been to Thailand. India. Northern Iraq. Crawford, Texas. Met all the great spiritual masters: Rumi. Dogen. Dr. Phil. Dr. Demento. Mr. Goodwrench. Mr. Goodbar. I gave a Gideon Bible to Don Juan. Threw a tailgate party at the Crucifixion.

I'm so enlightened, the Buddha asks me how to meditate. Moses wants me to edit the Ten Commandments. The Pope's begging me to take him to a Hooter's. And it's all because I learned to transcend my selfishness, dissolve my desires, launder my money, give up high speed pursuits, renounce lyposuction, install a new sprinkler system, reenamel my bathtub.

Many years spent sitting in the lotus position, studying Milton Friedman, listening to the Reverend Falwell reveal the present moment is all there is. And that's why I exist in Pure Awareness, invite abundance into my life, enjoy the right to own my own health insurance.

Years spent praying to Allah, drinking shade grown coffee, observing the Four Noble Truths while following a twelve step program have brought me to Nirvana, have united me with the infinite, stopped the wheel of dependent arising, allowed me to buy a bedroom suite with no money down, shown me the benefits from whole grain cereals and fresh local ingredients.

I no longer cling to the illusion of a separate ego mind, confuse reality with imagination, wear sunglasses at night, eat factory chicken, seek solace in cable television. I'm OK. You're OK. The pulse of eternity beats permanently in the moment at hand.

Wallace Gagne
Tokyo