by Dan Millman
“The House Rules?” I interrupted.
He laughed, then the bell clanged as a car rolled smoothly through a rain puddle into the station. I watched through the misty window as Socrates walked quickly out into the drizzle, wearing his poncho. I could see him put the gas nozzle in, go around to the driver’s side, and say something to a bearded, blond-haired man in the car.
The window misted over again, so I wiped it clean with my sleeve in time to see them laughing. Then Socrates opened the door to the office, and a draft of cold air slapped me harshly, bringing with it my first awareness that I didn’t feel well at all.
Still, when Socrates started to make some tea, I said, “Please, sit down, Soc. I’ll make the tea.” He sat, nodding his head in approval. I leaned against the desk for a moment, feeling dizzy. My throat was sore; maybe the tea would help.
As I filled the kettle and placed it on the hot plate, I asked, “Do I have to blaze some kind of inner path to this gate, then?”
“Yes, everyone must. You pave the way with your own work.” Anticipating my next question, he said, “Each of us has the capacity to find the gate and pass through, but few are interested. This is very important. I didn’t decide to teach you because of any unique capacity you possessed — as a matter of fact, you have glaring weaknesses along with your strong points — but you have the will to make this journey.”
That struck a resonant chord. “I guess you could compare it to gymnastics, Soc. Even someone who is overweight, weak, or inflexible can become a fine gymnast, but the preparation is longer and more difficult.”
“Yes, that’s exactly what it’s like. And I can tell you this: your path is going to be steep and rocky.”
My head felt feverish, and I ached all over. I leaned against the desk again. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Socrates come toward me, reaching out for my head. Oh no, not now; I’m not up to it, I thought. But he was only feeling my clammy forehead. Then he checked the glands in my neck, looked at my face and eyes, and felt my pulse.
“Dan, your energies are way out of balance, and your spleen is probably swollen. I suggest you visit a physician. Tonight. Now.”
I was feeling really miserable by the time I limped to Cowell Hospital. My throat was burning, my body aching. The doctor confirmed Soc’s diagnosis. My spleen was badly swollen due to a severe case of mononucleosis. I was admitted to the infirmary.
During that first fitful, feverish night, I dreamed that I had one huge leg and one shriveled one. When I tried to swing on the bars or tumble, everything was crooked; then I fell and fell and fell into the late afternoon of the next day, when Socrates walked in with a bouquet of dried flowers.
“Socrates,” I said weakly, delighted by his unexpected visit, “you shouldn’t have.”
“Yes, I should have,” he replied.
“I’ll have the nurse put them in a vase; I’ll think of you whenever I look at them,” I grinned weakly.
“They’re not to look at — they’re to eat,” he said, leaving the room. A few minutes later, he returned with a glass of hot water. Crushing some of the flowers, he wrapped them in a piece of cheesecloth he’d brought and dipped the tea bag into the water. “This tea will strengthen you and help cleanse the blood. Here, drink.” It tasted bitter — strong medicine.
Then he took a small bottle of yellow liquid in which were floating more crushed herbs, and massaged the liquid deep into my right leg, directly over the scar. I wondered what the nurse, a very pretty, businesslike young woman, would say if she came in.
“What is that yellow stuff in the bottle, Soc?”
“Urine, with a few herbs.”
“Urine!” I said, pulling my leg away from him in disgust.
“Don’t be silly,” he said, grabbing my leg and pulling it back. “Urine is a respected elixir in the ancient healing traditions.”
I closed my tired, aching eyes; my head was throbbing like jungle drums. I felt the fever starting to rise again. Socrates put his hand against my head, then felt the pulse in my wrist. “Good, the herbs are taking effect. Tonight should be the crisis; tomorrow, you’ll feel better.”
I managed a barely audible, “Thank you, Doc Soc.”
He reached over and put his hand on my solar plexus. Almost immediately, everything in my body intensified. I thought my head would explode. The fever started to burn me up; my glands pulsated. Worst of all was a terrible burning pain in my right leg at the site of the injury.
“Stop it, Socrates — stop!” I yelled.
He took his hand away and I collapsed into the bed. “I’ve just introduced a little more energy into your body than you’re used to; it will accelerate the healing processes. It burns only where you have knots. If you were free of obstructions — if your mind was clear, your heart open, and your body free of tension — you’d experience the energy as an indescribable pleasure, better than sex. You’d think you were in heaven, and in a way, you’d be right.”
“Sometimes you scare me, Socrates.”
“Warriors are always held in fear and awe.” He grinned. “You also look like a warrior: slim, supple, and strong from your rudimentary preparation in gymnastics. But you have a lot of work to do before you earn the kind of vitality I enjoy.”
I was too weak to argue.
The nurse walked in. “Time to take your temperature, Mr. Millman.” Socrates had risen politely when she entered. I lay in bed looking pale and miserable. The contrast between the two of us had never felt greater than at that moment. The nurse smiled at Socrates, who grinned back. “I think your son is going to be just fine with a little rest,” she said.
“Just what I was telling him,” Soc said, his eyes twinkling. She smiled at him again — was that a flirtatious look she gave him? With a rustle of white, she glided out the door.
Socrates sighed. “Ah, there’s something about a woman in uniform.” Then he put his hand on my forehead. I fell into a deep sleep.
The next morning, I felt like a new man. The doctor’s eyebrows rose as he checked my spleen, felt for my swollen glands, and rechecked my chart. He was dumbfounded. “I can’t find anything wrong with you, Mr. Millman.” He sounded almost apologetic. “You can go home after lunch. Get plenty of rest.” He walked out, staring at my chart.
The nurse rustled by again. “Help!” I yelled.
“What is it?” she said, stepping quickly inside.
“I can’t understand it, nurse. I think I’m having heart trouble. Every time you go by, my pulse gets erotic.”
“Don’t you mean erratic?” she said.
“Whatever.”
She smiled. “It sounds like you’re ready to go home.”
“That’s what everyone keeps telling me, but I’m sure I’ll need private nursing care.”
She winked, turned, and walked away. “Nurse! Don’t leave me,” I cried.
That afternoon, walking home, I was astonished by the improvement in my leg. I still limped badly, throwing my hip out to the side whenever I took a step, but I could almost walk without my cane. Maybe there was something to Soc’s urine treatment or the battery-charge he had given me.
School had begun. I was again surrounded by other students and books and assignments, but that was all secondary to me now. I played the game without concern. I had more important things to do in a small gas station on the corner of Oxford and Hearst.
After a long nap, I walked to the station. The moment I sat down, Soc said, “We have work to do.”
“What?” I said, stretching and yawning.
“A complete overhaul.”
“Oh, a big job?”
“You bet; we’re going to overhaul you.”
“Oh, yeah?” I said. Oh hell, I thought.
“Like the phoenix, you’re going to throw yourself into the flames and rise from your ashes.”
“A metaphor, I hope.”
Socrates was just getting started. “Right now you’re a tangled mass of twisted circuits and outmoded programs. We’re goin
g to rewire old habits of acting, of thinking, of dreaming, and of seeing the world. Most of what you are is a series of bad habits.”
He was starting to get to me. “Damn it, Socrates, I’ve overcome some difficult hurdles, and I’m doing the best I can. Can’t you show me some respect?”
Socrates threw his head back and laughed. He walked over and pulled my shirt out. As I was tucking it back in, he mussed up my hair. “Listen up, O Great Buffoon, everyone wants respect. But it is not just a matter of saying, ‘Please respect me.’ You must earn respect by acting respectable — and the respect of a warrior is not easily earned.”
I counted to ten, took a deep breath, and asked, “How, then, am I going to earn your respect, O Great and Awesome Warrior?”
“By changing your act.”
“What act is that?”
“Your ‘poor me’ act, of course. Stop being so proud of mediocrity; show some spirit!” Grinning, Socrates jumped up and slapped me playfully on my cheek, then poked me in the ribs.
“Cut it out!” I yelled, in no mood for his play. I reached out to grab his arm, but he leaped lightly up on his desk. Then he leaped over my head, spun, and pushed me backward onto the couch. Climbing angrily to my feet I tried to push him back, but just as I touched him he leaped backward over the desk. And I fell forward onto the carpet. “Goddamn it!” I raged, seeing red. He slipped out the door into the garage. I limped after him in pursuit.
Socrates perched on a fender and scratched his head. “Why, Dan, you’re angry.”
“Stunning observation,” I fumed, panting heavily.
“Good,” he said. “Considering your predicament, you should be angry. Nothing wrong with anger or any other emotion. Just pay attention to how you behave.” Soc deftly began to change the spark plugs on a VW. “Anger is a powerful tool to transform old habits” — he removed an old plug with the sparkplug wrench — “and replace them with new ones.” He threaded a new plug into the block, tightening it with a light tug of the wrench. “Fear and sorrow inhibit action; anger generates it. When you learn to make proper use of your anger, you can change fear and sorrow to anger, then turn anger to action. That’s the body’s secret of internal alchemy.”
Back in the office, Socrates drew some water from the springwater dispenser and put on the evening’s tea specialty, rose hips, as he continued. “To rid yourself of old patterns, focus all your energy not on struggling with the old, but on building the new.”
“How can I control my habits if I can’t even seem to control my emotions?”
“You don’t need to control emotion,” he said. “Emotions are natural, like passing weather. Sometimes it’s fear, sometimes sorrow or anger. Emotions are not the problem. The key is to transform the energy of emotion into constructive action.”
I got up, took the whistling kettle off the hot plate, and poured the steaming water into our mugs. “Can you give me a specific example, Socrates?”
“Spend time with a baby.”
Smiling, I blew on my tea. “Funny, I never thought of babies as masters of emotions.”
“When a baby is upset, it expresses itself in banshee wails — pure crying. It doesn’t wonder about whether it should be crying. Babies accept their emotions completely. They let feelings flow, then let them go. In this way, infants are fine teachers. Learn their lessons and you’ll dissolve old habits.”
A Ford Ranchero wagon pulled into the station. Socrates went around to the driver’s seat while I, chuckling, grabbed the gas hose and removed the gas cap. Inspired by his revelations, I yelled over the roof of the car, “Soc, I’m ready to tear those old habits to shreds!” Then I glanced down at the passengers — three shocked nuns. I choked on my words, turned beet red, and busied myself with washing the windows. Socrates leaned against the pump and buried his face in his hands.
After the Ranchero pulled out, much to my relief, another customer drove in. It was the blond man again — the one with the curly beard. He jumped out of the car and gave Socrates a bear hug.”Good to see you, Joseph,” Socrates said.
“Same here... uh, Socrates, isn’t it?” He turned to me and grinned.
“Joseph, this young question machine is named Dan. Push a button and he asks a question. Highly amusing, really.”
Joseph shook my hand. “Has the old man mellowed in his declining years?” he asked with a broad smile.
Before I could assure him that Soc was probably more ornery than ever, the ‘old man’ interrupted. “Oh, I’ve really gotten lazy. Dan has it much easier than you did.”
“Oh, I see,” Joseph said, maintaining a serious countenance. “You haven’t taken the boy on any 100-mile runs or worked with the burning coals yet, hmm?”
“No, nothing like that. We’re just about to start with the basics, like how to eat, walk, and breathe.”
Joseph’s laugh was so merry, I found myself laughing with him. “Speaking of eating,” he said, “Why don’t both of you come to the café this morning. You’ll be my private guests, and I’ll whip up something for breakfast.”
I was just about to decline — I had a class — when Socrates said, “We’d be delighted. The morning shift gets on in half an hour — we’ll walk over.”
“Great. See you then.” He paid Soc for the gas and drove off.
“Is Joseph a warrior, like you, Soc?”
“No one is a warrior like me,” he answered, laughing.”Nor would anyone want to be. Each of us has natural qualities. For example, while you’ve excelled in gymnastics, Joseph has mastered the preparation of food.”
“Oh, you mean cooking?”
“Not exactly. Joseph specializes in uncooked food. Fresh, natural, enzymes, and all that. You’ll soon taste for yourself. After Joseph’s culinary magic, you’ll have little tolerance for fast-food joints.”
“What’s so special about his food?”
“Only two things, really — both subtle. First, he gives his complete attention to what he does; second, love is one of the primary ingredients in everything he makes. It has a sweet after-taste.”
Soc’s replacement, a lanky teenager, came in with his usual grunted greeting. We left, crossed the street, and headed south. My limping pace quickened to keep up with Soc’s strides as we took the scenic route down side streets, avoiding early morning rush-hour traffic.
Crunching over dried leaves, we walked past the varied array of dwellings that characterize Berkeley’s housing, a mixture of Victorian, Spanish Colonial, neo-alpine funk, and boxlike apartment houses catering to many of the 30,000 students.
As we walked, we talked. Socrates began. “You’re going to need unusual energy to cut through the mists of your mind and find your way to the gate. So purifying, regenerative practices are essential.”
“Could you run that by me again?”
“Sure. We’re going to clean you out, take you apart, and put you back together again.”
“Oh, why didn’t you say that in the first place,” I teased.
“You’ll need to refine every human function — moving, sleeping, breathing, thinking, feeling — and eating. Of all the human activities, eating is one of the most important to stabilize first.”
“Wait a minute, Socrates. Eating isn’t really a problem area for me. I’m slim, I generally feel pretty good, and my gymnastics proves I have plenty of energy. How is changing a few things in my diet going to make a difference?”
“Your present diet,” he said, glancing up through the sunlit branches of a beautiful tree,”may give you ‘plenty’ of energy, but it also makes you groggy, affects your moods, and lowers your level of awareness.”
“How can changing my diet affect my energy?” I argued. “I mean, I take in calories, and they represent a certain amount of energy.”
“True, as far as it goes, but a warrior must recognize more subtle influences. Our primary source of energy is the sun. But in general, the human being — that’s you — “
“Thanks for the concession.”
“I
n your present state of evolution, you cannot ‘eat sunlight’ except in limited ways. When humanity does develop this ability, the digestive organs will become vestigial and laxative companies will go out of business. For now, a proper diet allows you to make the most direct use of the sun’s energy. This energy helps you focus your attention, sharpening your concentration into a slashing blade.”
“Just by cutting donuts from my diet?”
“And a few other odds and ends.”
“One of the Japanese Olympic gymnasts once told me that it’s not your bad habits that count, but your good ones.”
“That means your good habits must become so strong that they dissolve those which are not useful.” Socrates pointed ahead to a small café on Shattuck near Ashby. I’d walked past many times without really noticing it.
“So, you believe in natural foods?” I said as we crossed the street.
“It’s not a matter of believing but of doing. I can tell you this: I eat only what is wholesome, and I eat only as much as I need. In order to appreciate what you call ‘natural’ foods, you have to sharpen your instincts; you have to become a natural man.”
“Sounds ascetic to me. Don’t you even have a little ice cream now and then?”
“My diet may at first seem spartan compared to the indulgences you call ‘moderation,’ Dan, but I take great pleasure in what I eat because I’ve developed the capacity to enjoy the simplest foods. And so will you.”
We knocked on the door. “Come in, come in,” Joseph said enthusiastically, welcoming us to his tiny café. It looked more like a home: Thick carpets covered the floor. Heavy, polished, rough-hewn tables were placed around the room, and the soft straight-backed chairs looked like antiques. Tapestries covered the walls, except for one wall almost completely hidden by a huge aquarium of colorful fish. Morning light poured through a skylight overhead. We sat directly below it, in the warm rays of the sun, occasionally shaded by clouds drifting overhead.
Joseph approached us, carrying two plates over his head. With a flourish, he placed them in front of us, serving Socrates first, then me. “Looks delicious!” said Socrates, tucking his napkin into the neck of his shirt. I looked down. There before me, on a white plate, were a sliced carrot and a piece of lettuce. I stared at it in consternation.