ATTRACTING MY FIRST REAL TEACHER/SAGE.

 

Meeting my first real teacher and positive role model

A Buddhist proverb: “When the student is ready the teacher appears!” And I add, “in strange places!”

One of the turning points in my life occurred when I was fifteen. I left school in deep pain, and a few days later got on a train to London from Reading, the town nearest to my hometown. I cannot remember what drove me to do this; I just knew in my heart I could not take any more violence from my “crazy” family members. My sisters had left home by this time; one was at university, and the other had married.

In my steam train compartment (one of the last I was on) sat a very bright-eyed, grey-haired man wearing wire spectacles. Straight out he asked me, “What are you going to do with your life, son?” I remember looking around to see if there was an invisible person in this otherwise empty carriage. I realized he was talking to me. That showed me how low my personal esteem was … nobody had ever asked such a gentle question to me with a genuine concern.

Shocked, I stuttered, “I—I have no idea.” He smiled and said, “I invite you to come and see me in the East End of London. I may have something interesting for you to do with your life.”

Somehow, for once, I trusted a stranger—this man. Looking back, I recognize this “chance” meeting as a miracle sent in disguise. I could have so easily ended up homeless in London and gone into total despair. Indeed, many victims of low self-esteem, especially young people, go into cities searching for themselves as I did. Many of them get sucked into prostitution and drugs if their thoughts remain negative and they find no opportunities for advancement. I would love to imagine and be part of a movement that radiates in every family, community, society and country: If you change your thoughts you change your life!

This man turned out to be Sir Alec Dickson, who helped start the charity, Oxfam! Well, I went to the address and was interviewed for the post of community volunteer. This led to my working for a year and a half with the mentally handicapped, and then with mentally ill people. I loved this work. For once in my life, I had a defined role, and in a strange way I felt I belonged. It is such an important need in us all: a need to belong to something that’s hopefully worthwhile!

Insight: Today I connect with people, both young and old, who want to join and belong to alternative communities with values that are truly mindful of our ecological and human precariousness; my partner and my daughter are so keen on this, and I support them.

What amazed me out of this work of caring, cooking, cleaning, and listening to hurt people was that I actually found deep satisfaction. The wardens of both hostels I worked in believed in me and showed it by giving me good references.

Then Alec interviewed me for the toughest job I think I have ever had. This was to help start and run the first “rehabilitation” hostel for ex-prisoners in Leeds, Yorkshire.

Turning my ability to “survive the family” into a skill and life-long work

I nervously took a train north; this was first time I had traveled to what I thought was D.H. Lawrence country. (That was Nottingham). I had read Sons and Lovers at fourteen; and this book spoke to me about my own family. Later I read Lady Chatterley’s Lover—a real blockbuster because it involved explicit sexual descriptions. I remember everybody talking excitedly about this bold and daring book. Lawrence certainly shifted consciousness about what sort of “secret life” went on behind “closed doors.”

I was just sixteen years of age, tall and gangly, when I was interviewed by three probation officers in a courtroom. I stood literally in the dock! After asking me my motives for working with hardened criminals, I replied, “I am good at communicating with hurt people!” Who put that answer into my head I don’t know! Possibly the divine.