OUT ON a LIMB

by Shirley Maclaine

  I could see the Chinese revolution going the way of all modern day revolutions if they negated the need for the spiritual recognition of man. I was beginning to believe that what was wrong with all of us was our refusal to live with the knowledge that God—the word we use for a concept of incredibly complex spiritual energies—was the missing link that should be part of our daily lives.

  Now Buckminster Fuller’s theory about most of what transpires within the human activity of reality being utterly invisible, unsmellable, and untouchable began to make sense. He said that ninety-nine percent of reality could only be comprehended by man’s metaphysical mind, guided by something he only sensed might be the truth. He said man was metaphysical mind. And the brain was only a place to store information. He said only man’s metaphysical mind could communicate. The brain could not. That man was a self-contained microcommunicating system, and humanity was a macrocommunicating system. And that all information of everything, including God, was continually being broadcast and received through electromagnetic waves, only we weren’t aware of it because we were only using one percent of our capacities to perceive the truth.

  But what would help man to understand, not only what he came from, but where he was actually going? How could the State answer the deep, gnawing, longing questions of our origins and our purpose? How could the State be helpful in putting us more closely in touch with why we were alive when it was afraid that in doing so its power would be dissipated?

  I could see why the communists had never gone into India. It would be impossible to sway the deep spirituality of the Indian people. They would never condone the State replacing their spiritual philosophy even if it meant eating better. Their spiritual beliefs were the oldest on earth. The Indians had been taught and conditioned to be in touch with their spiritual natures since Krishna walked the earth so that it was a part of everything they did or didn’t do. A communist regime would have a tough time getting the Indian people to go along with the revolutionary materialism of Marx. Even Mahatma Gandhi couldn’t get the cows out of the houses or off the streets because the Indians still believed in the transmigration of souls (which was the animal forerunner to reincarnation into human forms). Maybe they were even right about that for all we know.

  It was astonishing to me how the unraveling of mystery worked. As long as there was one loose thread, it was possible to unravel the whole ball of wax. As long as the human race continued to be basically unhappy in its struggle to understand the Great Mystery, the impetus would be there to thwart all authority that stood in its path … whether it was the Church, the State, or the revolutionary society itself. No matter where we looked, the answer seemed to be in a force that was more knowing, more wise, more understanding, and more benevolent than we ourselves. And before we could understand that force, we would have to understand ourselves. We then became the Great Mystery. It wasn’t, who is God? It was, who were we?

  David and I walked upstream along the rocky banks of the orange river. The early noon sun was hot and shimmering. I was perspiring under my poncho. I took it off and David carried it for me. My California sun hat suddenly seemed my most valuable possession. The rubber-soled combat boots were solid and heavy against the jagged rocks. My feet were comfortable. When my feet were comfortable, I was comfortable.

  I sat down on a rock and made some notes. David waded into the river.

  Peruvian mountain people dotted the sides of the river either washing their clothes or lying on the ground—mostly in the sun. Their sense of time seemed slow and unhurried—almost careless—and their body movements corresponded. Sometimes they smiled as they ambled past us, but usually they just acknowledged our presence with a nod. David greeted them with his friendly Spanish. He never really seemed foreign anywhere.

  “There’s an outdoor sulphur pool not too far up the river,” he called to me. “Do you want to wash your hair or something? It’s great to take the baths in the sunlight.”

  It sounded great. I got up wondering if I would be able to recall the emotional carefreeness I felt here in the Andes. I wondered if I would be able to remember how close this was to supreme peace the next time I was caught in crosstown traffic in New York, or when the lights didn’t work properly during a dramatic number in my show, or when my latest picture flopped at the box office. Or Gerry … would I let myself be rankled and frustrated over the human obstacle course that had become our relationship? Would I be able to understand his drawbacks, and see my own, with more perspective if I conjured up the image of a moment on the Mantaro River banks when the sun was hot and my thoughts soared?

  I continued to trail my branch as we walked further upstream toward the sulphur pool. I heard sharp crystal birdcalls pierce the rarefied mountain air. I wondered if it would ever be possible to see music and hear the colors in a rainbow.

  “What’s on your mind?” asked David.

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I was just wondering if there was some kind of technique a person could use to feel inner peace and happiness when all hell was breaking loose in their own little world.”

  David shrugged his eyebrows. “I don’t know how it would work for you, but somebody once described a technique they used that they called ‘The Golden Dream.’ For example, if you are trying to fall asleep and your mind is bouncing around with all kinds of so-called problems that won’t quit—here’s what I do. I think of what would make me at that moment the happiest person in the world. I picture all of it in detail—what I would be wearing, who I would be with, what it would sound like, what kind of weather would be going on, what food I would be eating, what I would be touching … all that kind of stuff that would make me happy, in detail. Then I wait. I have the whole picture in my mind—created by my own will and fantasy, and it becomes so real that I am happy. I feel myself begin to relax and actually vibrate on a kind of even frequency, and in no time I’m off to sleep—or ‘on the astral plane,’ as I like to term it.”

  I listened, picturing myself doing what he said. It seemed very possible.

  “So that’s the Golden Dream, eh?” I said.

  “Yes,” said David. “Good title for a song.”

  “Yeah. Much better than ‘The Impossible Dream.’ ”

  “So,” he went on, “when you concentrate on what would make you happy, you actually produce an electromagnetic frequency which operates internally and literally soothes you into a feeling of inner peace.”

  “So it’s really just plain mind over matter, isn’t it?”

  “Sure,” he said, “but I really think something more is involved. For me, I think it would be exhibiting faith to myself and faith in myself. In other words, if I have enough faith in something, particularly through concentration or meditation, or whatever you want to call it, then I am unconsciously giving off enough positive energy which could ultimately result in its attainment.”

  “Even if what you want is unrealistic?”

  “Who knows if it’s unrealistic?”

  “You mean faith moves mountains?”

  “Yeah, probably. I think the positive mind is limitless. So I guess that would include mountains. That’s apparently something like what Christ was doing. Only it’s more than just faith, or meditation, or concentration. He had the knowledge of how to do it.”

  “And where did the son-of-a-gun get that knowledge?”

  “He said it was from God. But he also said He was the Son of God. So I think He was telling us that through God He had learned. That’s what all the Indian avatars say too. They don’t say they are the reasons they can materialize bread out of stones or cures out of disease. They say God gives them the power and the knowledge to carry out His works.”

  “You really are a believer, David. Aren’t you?”

  “I believe,” said David, “that most of us don’t really know ourselves well enough to know what we want. And by knowing ourselves better we would be better in touch with God, or the Creative Source.”

  I was huffing and puffing now as we
trudged in the noon day heat. The altitude was getting to me.

  David moved slightly ahead of me looking for a footpath that he knew led to the sulphur pool. I was ready for the buoyant water. I wanted to sit, and soak, and think about my dream which I was suddenly aware I was unaware of. I had no dream. I couldn’t imagine what would make me specifically happy. I couldn’t meditate on the details of the smells, the sights, the touch or the sounds of such a dream because I didn’t know what my dream was.

  He led me up the mountain to a path which ran parallel to the river. About half a mile further on we came to a wooden hut that housed the beginning of some stone stairs which led down into a niche inside the mountain. Walls of mountain rock loomed up around us as we descended the narrow stone stairs. At the bottom was a bubbling sulphur pool. Three old women waded in the bubbles wearing their starched hats and colorful native dresses. When they looked up and saw us they covered their faces and turned away.

  “The mountain elders are very reserved up here,” said David. “They have a thing about nudity and they need their privacy, so let’s turn our backs when we reach bottom and I think they will quietly leave.”

  Across the pool on the other side a young man lay sprawled in the water with his legs over the rocks. He was completely dressed in blue jeans and a shirt.

  “Is that his concession to the elders?” I asked David.

  “Sure, otherwise he’d have to wait for them too. Besides, his clothes are no problem to him. A short walk home and they’ll be dry.”

  David took out another hardboiled egg, peeled it and handed it to me. “It’s not good to eat this before a sulphur bath, but anyway.”

  The old women waded out of the water and climbed the stairs nodding to us stoically as they left. The young boy stayed where he was. We walked to the edge of the water. White clumps of sulphur sparkled in the sunlight and gentle steam wafted above the water as the warmth met the mountain air. David put down my poncho and the bag of eggs.

  I stretched in the sun and watched the young boy. He didn’t make a move to leave, just stared into the water.

  “Well, what should we do?” I asked. “Get undressed or what?”

  “Hmmm. Let’s see,” said David. “Let’s leave on our underwear. That’ll make it easier for everybody.”

  I took off my slacks, socks and combat boots, leaving my blouse ’til last because I wasn’t wearing a bra. Then with self-conscious flurry I whipped it off and walked into the water. The young boy continued to stare into the water, and David was busy getting undressed himself. Nobody really cared whether I was half nude or not.

  The water was warm and tingly just as it had been the night before but the experience of feeling it in the sunlight now was incandescent. First of all the top of the water looked like dancing silver. There was something about the way the sun played on the clusters of white sulphur that made the water look like silver liquid underneath. The rocks on the bottom were slippery with moss and algae but the buoyancy kept me upright. Somewhere near the center of the pool I found a comfortable rock to sit on and let myself in up to my neck. Now the reflection of the silver liquid nearly blinded me at eye level. I was happy I had my sunglasses and my hat. How ridiculous, I thought. Here I am engulfed in such ravishing natural beauty and I feel I have to protect myself from bad effects. I pumped my arms up and down under the water until my entire body was covered with sulphur mineral bubbles. They clung to my skin with a stringent kind of prickle, stinging ever so slightly but because of it, seeming to make my blood rush faster. I could feel the pool being fed from an underground source. The water rushed gently to the surface in a warm stream. The surface of the pool was warm from the mountain sunlight. And the temperature of my body fell somewhere in between. David stepped into the pool. He wore jockey shorts. He had muscular straight legs, except that his left one looked as though it might have been broken and reset. It was unnoticeable in street clothes. His torso was trim but not particularly muscular and his shoulders were narrow rather than broad. He didn’t look like a man who worked out with weights but he did look in good shape.

  He smiled slightly as though he knew I was checking him out but he said nothing as he waded in and knelt up to his neck. He breathed deeply and shut his eyes in pleasure at the tingly warmth of the water in the mountain air.

  The young boy didn’t move. He seemed in a trance. The liquid silver could probably do that to a person. I asked David.

  “Yeah, it can,” he said. “That’s why it’s so relaxing. The mountain people use the waters as much for their spirits as their bodies. It’s just too bad they won’t take off their clothes.”

  As the water began to take effect slowly, I realized I was getting heartburn. It began as a small knot somewhere in my upper chest region and spread.

  “It’s just the sulphur and minerals bringing out digestive defects,” said David. “That’s why it’s better not to eat before. But it doesn’t do any harm. Just makes you aware that your digestion is upset.”

  He retired to the opposite side of the sulphur pool to think and meditate. He sat quietly on the underwater rocks and gazed serenely into the water at eye level. I lifted my closed eyes to the sun. Heavenly, I thought. I looked over at David. His eyes weren’t blinking and his face was expressionless. A fly crawled across the bridge of his nose. He looked totally at peace, and as if he just weren’t there. I watched him for a long time. The boy with the blue jeans left. The three old women waited at the top of the stairs.

  I drifted over and put my sun hat on a dry rock. Then I dunked my hair into the water and rinsed it. I could feel the sulphur make my hair soft. In and out of the water I lifted my head, leaning backward. I felt so exhilarated, filled with elation. I remembered how I wished I could rush into the sea giving myself up totally to it. But just rushing my body into the water wouldn’t have been enough. I needed to plunge my head and face under in order to feel that I was free of reluctance … that’s what I wanted to be … free of reluctance … reluctance about everything … it didn’t matter. I wanted to feel totally open and embracing as though there was nothing to be suspicious about. I looked over at David again. That’s the way his face looked … completely oblivious to anything negative … serene. He looked as though he could have been part of the water … he was the water—only his form was human.

  I wondered how long David would meditate in the bubbling water. He hadn’t moved. Carbonated bubbles clung to his unmoving arms under the surface of the water. I wished I could go under the way he seemed to be doing. I wondered what might be going on inside of him as he sat so peacefully inert.

  I wondered if his soul could leave his body if he wanted it to. I wondered whether he was his soul or whether he was his body. No … the body died … the soul’s energy lived eternally. So, that must mean we are our souls—the body only houses the soul.

  David opened his eyes slowly. He blinked up at the sun and wiped his chin.

  “Jesus,” he said, “I was meditating! How long have I been under?”

  I said I didn’t know, maybe over an hour. Time didn’t matter anyway. In fact, it probably didn’t exist.

  David laughed and nodded. “What’s on your mind?” he asked.

  Oh God, I thought, how could I condense everything into words? “I don’t know,” I said, “just thinking and wondering. Wondering if a baby is born knowing everything and if little by little it forgets.”

  “Yeah,” said David. “Being in the body can be a drag. I have a much better time out there,” he pointed to the sky and gently moved an arm through it. “Come on,” he said, “let’s go for a walk. I have something to tell you, but I don’t know how. Sometimes it’s easier to think when you’re moving.”

  He climbed out of the water.

  One old woman waited at the top of the stairs for us to leave.

  We dressed quickly in the warm sun. David stopped, handed me a peeled egg and said, “Take it easy with yourself. Have patience. It will all be fine.”

  We cl
imbed the stairs, said goodbye to the woman, apologizing for the amount of time we had spent in the water, and began to walk back along the orange water of the Mantaro River.

  David walked ahead of me and stretched out his arms. He lifted his face up to the sun and sighed. “Oh,” he said, “I hope you can begin to feel some of the happiness and inner peace just waiting to be touched inside you.”

  I was taken aback by the direct personal quality of what he said.

  “All of this stuff is personal,” he said, sensing my reaction, “because what we’re missing is ourselves. You’re beginning to put the pieces of yourself together.”

  I lifted my face upward to the sun and thought of the few times I could honestly say I had experienced a sheer and complete feeling of happiness. Most of the time I had aborted the feeling by reminding myself of the negatives that persisted either during that moment or in my life in general. Like right this moment. The hot sun on my face filled me with unabashed pleasure until I remembered that I could get sunburned if it lasted too long. I laughed at myself. So what if I got a red nose and it peeled later? So what?

  David began to skip. He certainly loved to skip. I skipped with him. Our knapsacks bounced on our shoulders and our knees buckled under us when we skidded on pebbles. I found myself laughing with him. I laughed and laughed and the moment I felt a twinge of negative thought, I drove it from my mind with a mental sweep. Quick flashes of Gerry, the pictures I had made … Hollywood, Hawaii, New York … the world … dancing people I knew, people I wished I didn’t know … and when the darting flashes turned negative, I would overwhelm them with that same inner light that I experienced in the Himalayas. What was it I had read? First we are in the light, next the light is in us, and finally we and the light become one.