Spirit Invictus Complete Series

by Mark Tiro

  “Are you sure? If you had lived your whole life under that same grey, overcast sky—if that’s all you had ever known—you would never know there was a blue sky behind the clouds, right? You wouldn’t know there was a sun hidden behind the clouds either. If that’s all you had ever known your whole life, you wouldn’t even know those were clouds.”

  “Uh, I guess. But so what?”

  “Well imagine you look up now. You see that little by little, the clouds are starting to break, and you’re starting to see some blue sky for the first time. Slowly at first. You’re amazed and overjoyed. Probably a little scared too. You didn’t even know there was a blue sky. You might even catch a glimpse of the sun, but if you’d never seen it, you’d be just as likely to look straight at it and blind yourself.”

  David stopped, but Maya didn’t say anything.

  “Move forward a little now. Watch as the sky clears a little more. It’s mostly blue sky now, and you’ve gotten used to that. You can see the sun from time to time. But every now and then, one of those big, grey clouds floats through.”

  “That’s annoying,” Maya answered with a glimmer of understanding.

  “It is annoying, because you know now that the blue sky’s right there, behind it, clear as day. You know the sun’s there too, the same as it ever was. You’ve seen them both. But when one of those clouds drifts by, you become so focused on it. It’s not only that you see this cloud in front of you. It’s that you let your mind wander off, to the other clouds in your life that aren’t even in front of you. And then back, to clouds in your past that don’t even exist any more.”

  “Yep.” She looked dejected now. “That’s about the gist of it.”

  “You forget how happy you were,” he went on, “with the blue sky. You start to get annoyed at the cloud in front of you. It’s covering up a sun, which of course you now know is actually there. But you can’t see it because of the cloud, and so you get annoyed.”

  “Uh…”

  “Did you ever hear the expression, ‘things get worse before they get better’?”

  “Sure I have. Everyone has.”

  “Here’s how that plays out. Not in reality, of course, which is unchanged and unchanging. But as you go through the process, here’s how it’s going to seem. See Maya, you go down this path. You practice forgiving the things, the people that annoy you, the situations, the memories and even your own thoughts—everything that makes you angry or sad or depressed. Anything that’s not perfect peace, which is pretty much everything you’ll experience here. At least at first, until you’ve gotten a little bit of the way up the ladder. Anyway, this is where you practice your mind training. You forgive whatever’s in front of your face that’s not happiness and joy. Things get better.”

  “But then things get worse? Even though you’re doing this forgiveness practice thingy?”

  “Not really. But it sure seems like that. At some point, you’re going to find yourself staring down one of those clouds that used to cover your whole mind.”

  “Here come the clouds again,” she said dryly.

  “Even though it’s just a momentary blip drifting across the sky of your mind, you become so focused on it that it blinds you to everything else. That little cloud in your mind will blind you more than the sun ever could.”

  “I think you’re probably right,” she said, still looking dejected. “But why’s that?”

  “Because if that’s where you’re focused, that’s what you’ll see. There’s some unconscious part of the mind that believes it deserves to be annoyed. Or to be a victim.”

  “Or to see clouds?” she interjected.

  “Or to see clouds. Yes. And what is it to be a victim, or to be depressed, or to perpetually struggle just to pay bills? Whatever the form, these are the clouds of our lives. No one wants struggles in life. Not consciously that is. But there is this very powerful, unconscious, split-off part of our mind that does, that wants to keep us—”

  “Mired in clouds?” she offered.

  “Mired in clouds,” he repeated her words almost poetically. “It seems to get worse before it gets better. Not that it actually does. Take a step back and have heart. You’ll see how few clouds are really left in your sky. It only seems to get worse before it gets better. Practicing forgiveness, you’ll start to see that the clouds have gone away, little by little. You’ll start to know there is a ‘better’. And you’ll start to take comfort in knowing that despite the clouds, there is a sun. You’ll know all this, because you will have started to see it for yourself.”

  “David,” she said as he fell silent. “My brother died. Tom. He’s the bad one. But it’s still thrown me for one hell of a loop.”

  “I know,” he said. She didn’t stop to question how. She was thankful for the chance to talk at last.

  “It’s more like a solid wall than wisps of clouds. And hard as steel.”

  “After the accident—after Ella died—I had lots of time, sitting in jail. I knew I had to forgive myself. But I couldn’t. I mean—my daughter was dead, and it was my fault. How do you forgive that? Before the accident, I thought I’d been doing well. And then the accident—boom!” He clapped his palms as he said it. “The guilt was intolerable. Crushing. I replayed my memories of Ella. Over and over, I’d watch these inner movies in my head. From what should have been love for her, I felt only alone, behind my own wall.”

  “That way madness lies,” she empathized, remembering the old line.

  “Yes, Maya—that way madness lies,” he repeated. “But I was so focused on my suffering. My suffering! No one else’s! My precious suffering—God forbid I should just let it go. But I became so focused on it, on my suffering, that it started to overwhelm me.”

  Maya listened without moving.

  “My daughter, I’d picture a million little vignettes of her life. I’d hear her voice, see her face, tell her I was sorry,” he said, his voice trailing off now. “Everything. But I couldn’t forgive myself. Maya—I killed my daughter. Not on purpose of course. Not like they’re accusing me of doing. But still, I was the one driving. And here I was, knowing I needed to forgive myself, but not able to do it.”

  “That sounds terrible,” she said.

  “At some point, it became clear to me that I was never going to be able to forgive myself Maya. Not this lifetime. That’s where I would have given up and died.”

  “So what happened?” she asked.

  “Well, I did almost die, just in a different way. Best thing that ever happened to me. Guy beat the shit out of me in here, remember? Put me in the hospital, I was unconscious for a while. Or so I’m told.”

  “Of course I remember,” she answered. “Your face looked like a pressed grape, the first time they let me see you after they’d brought you back here. But how on earth, David, could that possibly be a good thing?”

  “Somewhere after he hit me the first time—but before I passed out—I knew this wasn’t going to end well for me. My very first thought was, ‘good, I don’t care. Go ahead and kill me.’ I told you about that already. But there’s one more thing. See, after the beating started, I had one more thought. It was this: even if I can’t forgive myself for Ella dying, I can forgive him for beating me.”

  “Wait, I thought you said you wanted to die?” she asked.

  “And I did, but there’s the instinct, the rush of anger when you’re getting hit that seems to be beyond your control.”

  “This is while he—”

  “—was beating the shit out of me. Yes. And it was starting to hurt. You know—even people with a death wish—well, you still feel some pain and want to attack back, or defend yourself.”

  “But you forgave him you said? While he was beating the shit out of you?”

  “No. Well, not at first. At first, it had felt like a hand reached up, grabbed my throat…the anger just coursed through me. It had been so long since I’d felt anger like that. I was actually surprised. For a little while at least, it completely obscured any th
ought of forgiveness. But you know what?”

  It was a rhetorical. She waited for him to go on.

  “I completely forgot about wanting to die. Now I wanted to live. In a second, this rage had come up inside of me—this brutal rage I hadn’t even remembered I was capable of. I wanted to live—but for no other reason than to kill him.”

  Her mouth opened wide, shocked into silence.

  “That’s right. I wanted to kill him. I wanted to murder this guy who was about to murder me. I was on my back bleeding. Obviously by this point, I had no ability to actually do any of this. It was all just playing out in my mind. I was splayed out on the bottom bunk, bleeding to death in the middle of the central jail dorm.”

  She listened, mouth open in stunned silence.

  “Still, I was conscious. And this love—this balmy feeling I had experienced through the years when I would practice forgiveness—all of the sudden, it came rushing in. It rushed in and just filled the space.”

  “What space, David?”

  “Every space Maya. It filled my mind, every corner of it. But then it just kept expanding. It just kept going, and me with it.”

  She was listening intently now, transfixed.

  “At first, it expanded, like some blissful love that healed every hurt I had ever felt. But it kept expanding, and then, I was this love. I joined with it, became it. All of it. I was it, but at the same time, it was greater than me, which probably won’t make any sense to you until you experience it. But there was—no, there is—no place where this love stopped and I began. The love was unstoppable, like a quiet wave that had no beginning and no end. And that’s when it became very clear to me that I had a decision I could make.”

  “You were bleeding on the bunk David?”

  “I was love Maya. The body bleeding to death on the bunk was no more me than…well, at that point, the reality of the situation was clear. I could take or leave that body on the bunk, and it wouldn’t make one bit of difference either way.”

  “You didn’t care if you died, David?”

  “No. I knew that body wasn’t me. I knew there was no ‘me’ that could die. I was this wave of infinite love expanding out everywhere. This body had absolutely nothing to do with any of that.”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “This body wouldn’t move by then Maya. That’s the instant I found myself back in it—for the last time. That’s the instant I knew I could choose. I could change my mind. I could let go of the anger and that desire to kill these guys who’d just about killed me, but I had to make a choice. So for a second time that day—this time for good—I decided to do just that. I forgave them as they beat the life out of that body. Who cares right? I thought. This body has nothing to do with me. Not in reality. I haven’t forgiven anyone since.”

  “What?” she exclaimed. “How’s that? I thought you keep telling me forgiveness is the way to wake up from…what? The dream?”

  “Forgiveness is a corrective, nothing more. It doesn’t actually do anything. It just undoes; it cancels out the wrong-minded thought system. Once that’s done though, both forgiveness and condemnation—the whole thing—it all just disappears. When there’s no more condemnation, even unconscious, there’s no more need for forgiveness. Both disappear, and all that’s left is unchanged, perfect love. Just as it always was.”

  “So what happened then? When you were getting beaten up?”

  “Nothing happened Maya. Nothing ever happens. Not really. It’s just images. But what came up for me, in my mind just then? Every unkind thought, every judgment, every grievance, every fleeting feeling of anger or mild annoyance I had ever had—this lifetime and every other. There it was, all my darkness, all right in front of me.”

  “So how’s that good?” she asked.

  “I had finally come to the spot where I could choose once again. And I did. I just decided I was done. I mean, who would want any of that, right? I could see the love, too, the perfect love, side by side with the darkness. And really, who would want the illusion of murder and death when you can have reality and perfect love, just for the choosing? Sure, it can take a while to get back to that point, where you’re ready to choose. That path back is this forgiveness process. But once you’re there, the choice just takes an instant. That’s because that’s all it is. A choice. But you do have to choose it. And you’re always free not to. But really, looking at the whole thing, it was just kind of silly. I mean really—Life or death? Peace or pain? Miracle or murder? The choice is kind of obvious. I just can’t believe I wasted so much time on the whole thing.”

  “Silly? And?” she asked, somewhere just between incredulous and bemused.

  “No ‘and’. I just opened my eyes and it was done.”

  “That’s it, you just opened your eyes David and woke up to love?”

  “Well not literally. Of course I couldn’t open my body’s eyes by that point—they were swollen shut from the beating. But by then, it didn’t matter. Lying there, I just felt such intense gratitude. I’d floated back into the wave, into the love, and for the briefest instant, I was aware of both—that, and the world. And then I just chose, and woke up. That was it. I’m done chasing illusions. The whole thing takes an instant. I decided. I’m done. And I’m not leaving this still, silent space again.”

  “But you’re still here. I mean, I can see you, you’re sitting here right in front of me.”

  “That’s what you see. Because it’s helpful for you, which is why you’re seeing it. But Maya, you do know—this ‘body’ you’re seeing has absolutely nothing to do with me, right? I am no more this body than you are yours.”

  “So that was it? You got the shit beaten out of you?” she asked.

  “That, and my daughter dying,” he answered. “Those were my last two forgiveness lessons.”

  “So what’s underneath the...clouds? What does it look like on the other side?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Nothing?” she blurted out. “I thought you just said blue sky and sun and all that business?”

  “That’s just analogy. In reality—Nothing. From the perspective of the world, it looks like there actually is an ‘other’ side. But truth is—there is no other side. You wake up to reality, and the dreams just end—back into the nothingness from which they came. Reality is just everywhere, no walls. Even here. The ‘other’ side is just where you wake up and ‘see’ it. Not with your eyes, of course. You wake up in your right mind… and there—you know it. But there is no ‘it’ to see. And for that matter, there’s no ‘you’ to know. There’s just pure, impersonal, all-encompassing love, which expands to fill every corner and every space. And then it keeps extending. That’s all there is. Nothing outside of this love—”

  “—is real?” she interrupted. “Only love—”

  “—exists. Nothing but love exists Maya. And with just love, everything else rolls back up into the nothingness from which it came.”

  “So that’s it then? You’re an enlightened master now?”

  “There’s no need to start calling me names.” He grinned. “I thought we were… friends.”

  “Of course we are. And I appreciate that, thank you.” She smiled broadly now, no pretension. A few moments later, she drew down quietly in her chair, looked in his eyes, and asked gently, “So what’s left for you now?”

  “Love is. And nothing else.”

  29

  Maya went in to work the following Monday. Not officially. Officially she was still taking time off. ‘Bereavement leave’ the HR people had called it. But David’s prelim was Thursday, and she had no intention of not knowing her case cold before the prelim.

  Her main goal today was to get in to the office, pick up the file, and get out before anyone saw her. Prepping for David’s murder prelim was easy compared to making small talk and having to hear people tell her how sorry they were about her brother.

  After making her way to her office, she picked up the file, and was almost back out the door when, from down the
hall, she heard—

  “Maya! Come on! They’re cutting cake in the lunchroom. Everybody will be so happy to see you’re here!”

  Maya looked over to see that her secretary Alma was barreling down on her for the second time in just a few days. Jeeeeshhh! Maya thought. And she’s blocking the path to the door.

  Alma smelled of tequila most mornings. Maya braced herself for the smell but when Alma got close enough, Maya was pleasantly surprised to find herself greeted not by the smell of alcohol but rather, by the smell of strawberries.

  Regardless, Alma had been the best secretary Maya had ever known. This of course hadn’t stopped Maya’s occasional angry flare-ups at her, but all in all, the two had a good relationship. Maya had the distinction every May of being the only attorney invited to Alma’s birthday. Over the years, it had evolved into a home-catered, outdoor event in Alma’s East LA backyard. Maya was more than happy to admit that her secretary made some of the best margaritas she had ever tasted.

  Dreading what awaited her in the lunchroom but unable to figure a way out, Maya gave up trying to resist and instead followed Alma down the hall. “Just let me ask one thing,” Maya said as they walked. “Does whoever’s birthday cake this is have strawberries in it?”

  “Yes! How’d you know?” Alma exclaimed. “See I knew it! That’s why you are the smartest lawyer I know. If I ever get arrested again, you will be the first person I call.”

  “I know,” Maya said, just as they got to the lunchroom. “I know.”

  The room was packed with people expecting free cake—nominally to “celebrate” the birthday of one of the secretaries. Which is when Maya heard Alma’s voice come over the PA system. Damn! When did she sneak out? Maya wondered. Alma was announcing the free cake to everyone in the office within earshot, as well as its proximate location.

  Which, to say, is also how Maya found herself having to make small talk for the better part of the next hour.

  That afternoon, at the time she had expected to be sitting at home in pajamas, Maya instead found herself sitting in rush hour traffic. She watched as kids on bicycles passed her by, until she couldn’t take it anymore. Then she reached over for her phone and did the one thing she could think of to pass the time. She called Joel.