PART I
Ugliness burned her imprint into my mind while I was in a state, dreaming. Unconscious, Ugliness roared and shredded and chewed and destroyed all that appeared sweet and innocent. With fright and fury, Ugliness, alluring and tainting, colored her darkness upon all that was previously light. My safety was gone, my sanctuary, now only a mockery of mind; its ground being tread by the principal antagonist of peace, Ugliness. Ugliness the archfiend, there had persuaded; Ugliness was upon me now. The story that I had lived by for thirteen years, the safety of a community of expanding spirit was found to be sallow and untrue. All that I had leaned upon was falling away as I began to come into the sadness of the aftermath; all that was left was the destruction inflicted by Ugliness. What is the meaning of this Ugliness, and how to flee all of the terrible ramifications of her imprisonment of dissolution?
A friend of mine revealed recently that he was HIV positive; as the tears began to fill my eyes—I mean, I know this is the modern age and that there are medicines that can make his life just as long, if not longer than mine—he began to describe to me that learning the news of his condition came as a certain kind of relief to him. I thought about his meaning—when such a giant threat does nothing but hang above your head—taunting and menacing, and anything but forgiving—then yes of course it becomes a relief when the hatchet finally gives way and falls down upon you.
I understood this as I had only recently lost the safety of the only community where I had ever felt safe in my life—my spiritual community. Ugliness, a lover that my husband had taken while we were separated, had infiltrated into my world, and had taken it upon herself to destroy all of my relationships and safety there within my private spiritual sanctuary, as a means of revenge for her idea of my “stealing” my husband back. I felt baffled initially; stopped momentarily in my tracks. How could I steal something that was already mine? Such an asinine conclusion on her part. Ugliness, as a great con artist and Svengali, having had perfected these traits as a means to fortify her facade which disguised a myriad of mental conditions and illnesses, had managed to poison the minds of two of the most dear people to me. She had warned my husband that she was going to do this to me, she had warned him that she was out for revenge. A fraud of such grandeur, that no one would ever see her coming. The threat had been hanging over my head for months. When the second person, followed by the first, finally declared their hatred toward me after subscribing to the manipulative rhetoric of Ugliness, I felt the relief of that threatening ax finally coming down upon me. Breathing as if for the first time, then I was finally free …
I remember waking up the next day with a huge sigh of relief; the worry and the waiting of the chaos Ugliness had threatened to wield upon me was over. I had lost the last thing that Ugliness was able to take from me. I felt that Ugliness now had all of my old things, even my old mattress, which is bizarre on a completely different level. I had outgrown all of these things, there was nothing left to take from me. I knew that this was the peace that my dear friend was describing to me about finally contracting HIV. He talked about how that disease was in the back of the minds of every gay man, and that it became no more than a numbers game after a while. His description was grim and morose, but a viable one just the same. Is it possible to come into a sort of agreement with ugliness, sickness, and despair? Is it possible to began to embrace the things that they had to offer? Is it possible to find inner peace with Ugliness? Is this what the Buddhists are describing about being an unaffected observer? The ability to stand within the idea of the powerlessness of all conditions?
As I am not of that permanently exalted state of mind, I began to wonder at the purpose such ugliness takes in our lives. Why are we meant to suffer it and what does it ultimately mean? How can we incorporate, process, and move through such vile people, emotions, and experiences, and why must we do so? What of being wrongly accused, misunderstood, and exempt from exoneration? What of being forced into an illness and possibly an untimely death? What of loss and despair and all other sorts of depravity? Physical ugliness is a tangible reality; physical ugliness is something that we can grab hold of and make sense out of. Physical ugliness offends us on every level, and at its worst, physical ugliness becomes illness, sometimes terrible illness. Emotional ugliness as for its meaning—well that remains to allude us.
When my husband and I were apart he had gravitated toward Ugliness, who later revealed herself to be the only real adversary that he and I have ever had. My husband saw his alignment to Ugliness—since she was in the same spiritual community as me—as the road back to being in my world, the road back to me; but subconsciously it was more than that. It was not something that he consciously knew, but it was a subconscious call to him to work out a puzzle in his own mind; a means to answer a larger question that he had always been harboring in his soul; it was the first time he really had to confront the difference between wrong and right. Ugliness was rude and harsh and abrasive, just as her appearance was; she was a lesson that he needed to learn. He left the last dynamic of our relationship—that bad part—only to recreate the same dynamic with Ugliness, but flipping the roles. He was now the meek person who was standing up against a crushing and flattening giant. Ugliness dressed in gentle disguise as a lamb, but was unable to soften her facial expressions or the harshness of her hair and body. Ugliness was a hurricane of unpredictable discord, ruining all that she touched, and my husband came home broken and ready to rebuild. Ugliness, whom we both ended up being sentenced to, proved to be a great blessing with tremendous purpose. The most vile and unbelievable acts that my husband and I had ever been exposed to at her hand, garnered the greatest love and trust for each other that we had ever known. He praised me for my gentility and thanked me daily for the continual peace in our home. I thought about how Ugliness, this menace, this parrot, this fraud, had ruined my spiritual life only to save my marriage. Ugliness found wielding hate, had become my greatest gift, and my greatest loss was my greatest gain.
So what of ugliness then? Are we coming into a purification through the very fire of ugliness? My friend facing his illness with stoic conviction, states that the fire of ugliness is tantamount to relief. This is the juxtaposition that exonerates him, this is the peace, this is the ease. If ugliness is nothing more than a double-sided coin can we all be freed of it? Free of the fear and free of the threat? What then of the real world probability of putting this newly defined ugliness into play? Where will we be next? Will ugliness be evaded or brought to her knees? Will ugliness do no more harm, stripped of any power? Is it feasible to reduce ugliness only to a synonym? Ugliness, relief; illness, life; fall, stand; destroy, generate; fear, relief. Powerless.
PART II
Brett says “Ugliness hides behind all that zen and karma bullshit, but really she is just a dirty skank.”
Sage says “Ugliness actually did you the biggest favor of your life.”
I say “Why can’t Ugliness just say what she is? Without that truth she is just a fraud. She is no spiritual leader. She is a charlatan. “
Sage says “I hear you calling Ugliness the destroyer of your spiritual life. As I can see, Ugliness came through as a whirlwind of hell and upheaval, leaving a trail of destruction in her wake. What remains to you now in the aftermath is a clarity about Ultimate Reality which you have never been willing to see; a truth about spirit, an awakening about the true inner nature of your peers and teachers, the ability to step outside of a doctrine you placed on just a few people residing in the same public space, ultimately just a drop in the bucket of spirituality. The space and few people that you perceived as wearing the most holy garments, have shown a fickle underbelly, and you are now blessed in the reality of things rather than the appearance of things. You are now seeing clearly your true yoga master, your true sanctuary in New York City, your true space where the presence of this human disruption and chaos, this Ugliness, encircled by an ensnaring snarl, would fall away as quickly as a wrong thought in a saint’s eye. You are now blessed with the ability to understand that people of similar nature migrate toward one another; the true inner nature of one man recognizing the very same true inner nature of another man subconsciously. You are blessed in the understanding that your goals are beyond the entrapment of human disorder, and that you cannot stand alongside the men who wish to remain in human disorder any longer. You are being pushed away from them, your growth is no longer stifled. Although you did not want to view your loved ones in a manner that did not suit your definition of them, you are now blessed in truth. Your spiritual peers in this city are not all who you suspected, however you are blessed in the wholeness of their companionship and their likeness of mind and true inner nature. The willingness of Patrick and Jeremy, among others, to be open in heart and mind, to stand in truth and integrity, to not be swayed by the devil, and to see that reflection is reflection is your great spiritual gift. Now, what I heard you say was that Ugliness ruined your spiritual life only to save your marriage; I can see that Ugliness in fact, not only saved your marriage, but Ugliness also saved your spiritual life. Oh how Ugliness has saved you! Om Shanti.”
Thou speaks thou right! I am not separate as I am whole! I am aware of a realm that is greater than the body, a realm that is not the body or the measure of a collection of contorted positions. I am aware of a boundless eternity. I am relieved of the great burden of a lower unconsciousness, a lower entrapment. I am free!
“Sounds of laughter, shades of life, are ringing through my opened ears, inciting and inviting me. Limitless undying love, which shines around me like a million suns, they call me on and on across the universe!” -John Lennon
Glory to the shining remover of darkness!!
Jai guru deva om