Wisdom from Imprisonment

The Prison Gates are Open; the Garden is Yours by Kim Hawke

Conversations on Ways We Imprison and Free Ourselves

(This is a collaborative work in process.)

Whether we are aware of it or not, most of us live imprisoned and limited lives. Our incarnation here on earth may be likened to a kind of confinement into the challenging circumstances we face. The limitations of living in a human body (which may have various illnesses and disabilities, and eventually dies!) offers valuable lessons. Also, the forgetting of all that occurs previous to incarnating, may be likened to an imprisonment of consciousness into the specific dream reality of our current life. I have remembered and been moved by these words that Neem Karoli Baba (Maharaj-ji) uttered at the end of his life: “Today, I am released from Central Jail forever.” (It is worth reading the full story of his death here.)

Victor Calderon Gutiérrez has been serving time in an actual prison. When he and I discuss how he has found peace, healing, and wisdom from his extreme confinement, I realize that we have much in common. Our circumstances, and what we have done to help ourselves, offer surprising similarities. Discussions with him help me to see the imprisonment of my mind, emotions, trauma and life. Perhaps the fragments of conversation expressed here may turn into a more formal article on this valuable subject. I have invited other friends to join us. We will see how our dialogue evolves.

Receiving Life with All of One’s Mind and Heart

Victor: I have learned to live with nothing, and with that nothing I feel grateful.

My Living Space, My Buffer Zone photo by Victor

March 20, 2022 (from an Instagram post)
Victor: Whether you live in prison, on top of a mountain, or in a palace, it doesn't matter. You take yourself with you wherever you go. And if your heart is sad, it doesn't matter the scenery. I am grateful for what I have now, because before when I had a lot I was suffering and never thankful.

Nick: So powerful and moving, my friend. From your lips into my heart, thank you for sharing this.

Victor: Thank you for your words my friend. And what can I say, for the experience of life is here and anywhere the same. Whether in a prison or a mansion, we are experiencing this reality that is so fleeting, beautiful, magical and often so contradictory. Today I am locked up here, tomorrow I don't know. However, I can decide to receive this trip with all my mind and heart, or I can decide to avoid it. I have decided to enjoy the journey and learn to listen to what life expects of me.

Nick: I am moved by this, practicing the same approach.

March 26, 2022
Arena Heidi: Victor, I echo what Nick said. Your words are powerful and moving to me and I want to live this way also. I have been reflecting on how important it is to put one’s full heart and self behind one’s life. It has taken me a very long time to be behind myself and my experience. Some things I now am effortlessly behind 100%. But there are parts of life that I feel more ambivalent about. I have to make an effort to rally my energy and get behind them.

Also, what you wrote about deciding to receive or avoid something is so important. You said to me in one of our first conversations, that following an inner spiritual path “is not an obligation. Always the path is optional and a personal decision.” Your words have stayed with me in a powerful way as a reminder of the necessity of choice. I have made big commitments to show up for myself and life. But then each day I must remember and make small choices to either be present or avoid. Am I showing up to what is here in this moment? It is always a choice to open to and receive what is here.

Cultivating Patience with Time and Reality

El Lector (The Reader) by Victor Calderon Gutiérrez

March 11, 2022 (from private conversation)
Victor: Time for me has a very special value, very particular. I say this in the sense that because I am deprived of freedom, I have spent a lot of time locked up in small spaces feeling that time does not exist, or exists in another way than what it informs the clock. For example, on one occasion I had to wait 4 years to see my son again. At first the anxiety and the desire to see him caused a lot of noise in my mind, a lot of pain. Then the acceptance of my reality appeased the anxiety until it arrived time to see him again. So the immediacy in my life practically does not exist. Almost everything I hope for has barriers or depends on third parties. Under these conditions, waiting to "cultivate patience" has been an imposed exercise and I have learned to develop it.

March 25, 2022 (from an Instagram post)
Victor: Thanks to the miracle of life, we know that there is a reality beyond the obvious, namely: economic system, laws, society, success, accumulation of money, etc. This does not mean that we exclude ourselves from this reality, since we live within it, but not hand in hand with it, which helps us to see life with greater breadth, tenderness and even sorrow. Perhaps the greatest achievement of my life so far has been connecting with my emotions.

March 26, 2022
Arena Heidi: Victor, the above words that you wrote were powerful and meaningful to me because I know that I need to deepen into what you said, and merge feelings of time not existing in the way we think, with the relentless cultivation of patience with our society. I was born with Saturn conjunct Mars. Every step forward I take in life, I often feel held or forced back. External obstacles and difficulties hold me back, as well as my own internal forces. My life has felt like imprisonment due to my conditioning, but also having to function within systems of society that feel relentlessly oppressive. The society where I reside, appears to be moving further away from the integrity and vulnerability that I work to embody. However, underneath I feel a sense of hope, that transformation is happening in a beneficial direction even if it doesn’t appear that way on the surface.

Bringing things to life in the physical realm is a slow and painstaking process, especially now that I have a lot that I want to do and express. I spend my days focused upon that which feels important, yet a mere fraction gets accomplished. I am patient, but frustration and grief arise. Also, now that I am 60 and Denny is 75, I feel like I am running a losing race against death. I feel the weight of all that I hope to do, before I lose the capacity to do it. It took me so long to come to some kind of spiritual fruition, where I finally feel as if I have something of value to offer. I feel a pressure of not much time left.

Nick and I discuss this vast ocean that we find ourselves in. The rising dark water metaphor came to me in a dream right before Covid-19. Now it manifests in my life as unfathomably vast, alive, humming, stillness that is always right here with me. It opens when I meditate or attune to it. The hum or vibration of this stillness creates and holds forms together. Now when I do my healing practice of holding myself, I am simultaneously held by this space. I feel held and loved in a profound, grounded, impersonal and intelligent way that usually is peaceful, but is occasionally is frightening in its vastness and intensity. I also agree with what you said about the importance of connecting and being with emotions.

April 22, 2018
The real choro's love: seeing the whole world as a holy place was an important key.

November 15, 2017
10 años viviendo en una celda de 2x3, 16 horas al día. Un reto a la mente y a la no mente.
10 years living in a 2x3 cell, 16 hours a day. A challenge to the mind and the no-mind.

August 4, 2021 (from an Instagram post)
Victor: In the darkness of the basement the light doesn't come, but it is there, I am there and my soul is a shadow but the darkness doesn't possess me because I am the abyss.

August 7, 2021 (from an Instagram post)
Victor: It is who we are, an error in the system, a faulty machine that has been removed from society. Animals or men, the feeling is shared. Perhaps the animal is blameless, but we are all victims of other victims.

March 19, 2021
Cuida de no habla aml de ti misma. La diosa que llevas en tu interior puede sufrir heridas muy deficiles de samar.
Take care not to speak ill of yourself. The goddess that you carry inside you can suffer wounds that are very difficult to heal.
The goddess within you may suffer from wounds that are very difficult to heal.

Link to Victor’s Instagram Page
Link to Victor’s blog with his poetry in Spanish

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