Thirty minutes into the drive, we reached highway 101 and decided to put on some loud music and talk. This was quite an accomplishment. My capacity to drive while hearing multitudes of musical sounds, nature rhythms, open window winds, and Chris’s voice while keeping track of the conversation still shocks me. We agreed to turn on Bob Marley as we headed south into the rising sun and cute little wispy clouds.
The music combined with the spectacular sunrise put me in a very expanded and sublime state. I do not know how much time passed because only the music existed. But soon Chris and I were talking about our fantasies for waves and for the trip. With wonderful images and fuzzy feelings arising, I asked Chris about where he wanted to surf first. He mentioned a very crowded and perfectly set up rocky point south of Santa Barbara. Immediately I felt warm and open feelings about that scenario. It was April and thus late for the big winter swells that would make this location fun. However, there was a rare west swell reported, which would hit all parts of the coast equally. Chris and I seemed to be there together in our mind’s eye. My awareness swam in images of surfing head-high point waves under an April sun. This was clearly Dolphin-type fun!
I changed the music to better suit the watery mood. Neither of us was talking now. There was a sense of climbing through a deep, dark tunnel warmed by an inviting fire and filled with comfortable matting on the floor of animal furs and rugs.
Story after lucid story arose in my mind. I found myself totally in this world of dreams. Occasionally, what felt like an immense awareness would peek out thru me while still driving the car. At this point in my life, I had learned to create rapturous states through yoga techniques and breathing. I had done an intense session of yoga, strengthening, and breath work that morning at 5 a.m. which is much earlier that I normally wake. This produced a satisfied tiredness that had spread into the sunrise drive.
Images of swimming in warmer water arose then delicate feelings of falling and then of coming into my body. The sensations were just subtle enough that my attention still wandered in the lucid dream awareness. I was enjoying full body feelings of flying like a hawk while being enclosed within a box on wheels.
One of my Native American teachers used to refer to modern inventions in symbolic terms. Some simple phrases used were “metal birds,” for airplanes; “iron horse,” for trains. I came up with one of my own shortly before this trip while looking out of 10th story window in a skyscraper. As I looked down upon the traffic, it looked as if people were like ants, scurrying about. But what really struck me was how the long line of cars, moving and stopping, seemed like a river from top view. I called the busy street a “river of steel.” It was a pleasant synopsis of what I was experiencing.
Suddenly, we were at a mountaintop and back to our familiar reality. I felt like I had jumped from one dream to another. We were back in the car and had reached the summit of the coastal ridge north of San Luis Obispo, about two and half hours from L.A., and an equal distance from our starting point.
A strange feeling of an “immensity” seemed to be looking through “my” eyes. It was very warm, yet demanded no attention. It sorta hung there. A sense of satisfaction arose while I saw vistas of the ridgeline. These were very jagged vertical granite rocks with sparse soil and irregular oak groves scattered about in the deep gorges.
The expanded state slowly ended. I found my old sense of self back, alternating with ethereal states. A familiar sensation accompanied by a heavy dragging feeling in my chest. Maybe some part of me was resisting.
A familiar voice asked, “Coming back?” and then, “Craig, where are we?” The night before I had pushed Chris into staying the night and we had done the morning exercises together. I guess that partially accounted for why he was off somewhere too for who knows how long. A sense of heaviness arose immediately and then a humorous thought.
“We’re in San Luis Obispo,” I replied while chuckling to myself about my next question to him.
“Hey Chris, who was driving the car the last two hours?” He looked at me quizzically, but then a common knowing was shared. A look was all it took. We laughed belly rocking laughter until the ocean appeared.
Living on the edge had always been a part of my life. I tried to remember having any awareness of the road the last two hours. There were huge gaps in memories of places, observations and sensations but there was no stress or tension. Just humor.
I realized we had been in “satori”, or total surrender into the flow of life. It seemed like a pleasurable trance. I could have been seriously hurt by not “paying attention,” yet this doubting mind doubted after the fact. Could it have been that I simply did not remember driving and paying attention?
What is memory? It seems as if awareness itself possesses infinite abilities to split itself. I wondered if the location I designated as “I” was simply a collection of programs, memories, and conditioned responses. Memories seemed like snapshots, projected on the mind’s inner screen. But what sees those images? The question had haunted me as long as I have had memory.
This was only one example of how the answer to my inquiry manifested. Who or what was driving the car? While “I” drifted off some force was definitely taking control of our fate. Whomever was driving the car was the same entity, or force, also seeing the images of memory in the mind’s eye. They were only different perspectives, arising from the same source.
The “Dude” who was driving the car, wasn’t a dude at all. It was (and is) the birthplace for “Dudes,” and the final resting place.
Tao Te Ching
Chapter 42 (excerpt relevant to this story) (parenthesis my addition)
The Tao (or The Infinite Mystery) gives birth to the One,
The One gives birth to Two (duality – light and dark, etc…)
Two gives birth to three (more forces we can feel/experience)(or The Son of God, The Son of Man, and Holy Ghost)
Three gives birth to the Ten Thousand Things (all manifest things)
(If you get this, like can feel into it, not understanding in the mind, then you are already on your way in a magical journey)
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