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LIGHT OF THE ATMA – THE SPARK WITHIN
n the scheme of time, mountains crumble, rivers change their courses, islands form, and men explore everything except themselves. It is only when man’s curiosity is directed by his higher intelligence that he thinks to explore the world within. Do science and spirituality really go hand in hand? Only man is blessed with the intelligence to grasp whether this is true or not; for, how will man be able to understand the world around him or comprehend the inner world within, if his intelligence does not have this unique capacity? Being that human intelligence does have both of these special powers, why has man sought the outer more than he has sought the inner reality? Can this type of one-sided scientific research lead mankind to the social equilibrium and happiness for which he’s been searching so long? Some men play with life as though it is a toy. They treat as jokes the roles they have been given by God; and though equipped with the power of reason to better their lives, they allow their reason to become dominated by desire, and thus, rationalize everything they do for the sake of their wants. As the ages pass, societies are put through their paces by men who rule them. Few are born to rule; and even though some followers do become good leaders, most men are born to only follow. There are, however, types of men who refuse to follow the morals of social order and think of themselves as better than others, but in actuality, are less. In this world, the indigent non-conformists who step out of line are called renegades; whereas, wealthy non-conformists who transgress the social morals are referred to as eccentric. Both classes of men have the strong desire to carve out their own path in this world, but only one group can afford to do so – the rich. By the time the nineteenth century was fading from the evanescent scene of time, drifting into the irretrievable realms of the past, the dawn of the twentieth century was coming over the horizon bringing with it the illustrious promises of the future. Chicago had become a blustering town filled with ambitious men who were bringing the city into its own as far as being a central figure in the development of both the East and the expansive and untamed West. These so-called ‘big men’ with their ‘big ideas’ and a great amount of money to back them up, roamed the wealthy sections of Chicago as free as feral birds, while the poor were kept caged in the sweat factories. In spite of the ramshackle look and feel of some parts of the city due to the poverty of the immigrants, Chicago had the sumptuous flavor and scent of wealth. Millionaires were made and broken overnight. The wants of those who succeeded grew by leaps and bounds. Exploitation was put into high gear to satisfy the greed of the rich. And who worked for the wealth they acquired? The immigrants!
hicago was a powerful magnet that attracted many wealthy Europeans who un-sedately sought to increase their lucre by investing in the railroad, lumber, mining, and steel industries. Some scheming men of means brought trailblazers and frontiersmen from the Wild West and heroized and glorified them for the frail easterners who had more bags of money to their names than good deeds. Gun-slinging cowboys attended formal balls and rubbed elbows with fancy-dressed men who were then expected to invest in the railroad and assorted ventures. The cowboys and Indian fighters were paid to recount their exploits before the timid men and tender-nerved ladies. The western drama enacted at many a private party put women into a faint, and fright into the men, yet no man dared to admit he was a coward and was consequently made to demonstrate his courage by his investments.
ne easterner who particularly loved to toy with the feelings of others in this manner was a very powerful man by the name of Michael Alexander Smith – a textile merchant whose elaborate mansion lay on a thousand sprawling acres adjacent to Lake Michigan. As in so many other mansions across the city, Michael’s mansion was the scene of many a rodeo-type get-together that enthralled the hearts of the elite. Michael was married to a remarkably beautiful woman, by the name of Margaret, who struck everyone who saw her as stunning as the luster of a diamond. As happy as she appeared to be, however, she suffered from a sense of discomfort in her marriage. If it were not for her son Peter, she would have left her husband and returned to Boston to live with her parents long ago. Michael’s pride was the basis of everything he did, especially when it came to his son. Because of this, a conflict of values arose between him and Margaret and was the cause of her grief and despair. He wanted certain things for his son that clashed with her vision of what Peter should have. Luckily for her and for her son, Michael was possessed by a strong, ever recurring desire to travel. This would inevitably keep him away from home for long periods of time – sometimes for a year or more.
NO MORE SISSY NANNIES!
s the years passed in this way, mostly without his presence, Margaret fondled her son with governesses who had that same special spark of values she herself embodied. Thus, her husband’s absences allowed her the freedom to raise Peter with those particular qualities she felt to be so important to life; qualities that he so frighteningly seemed to flagrantly disregard at times. As a consequence of Margaret’s love and concern for her son’s well-being, he began to develop into a well-rounded boy of values, unhindered by his father’s interference. But when Peter turned ten, his father suddenly took a special interest in his future.
Leaving on a short buying trip, Michael left Margaret and Peter in the sorrowful state of separation. But Peter was a courageous young lad. He had an immense and sharp wit which was charged with a stout-hearted self-determination. When his father returned, Margaret besought that Peter be allowed to live at home. But Michael wanted his son to be independent rather than subservient to a bunch of women.
“How is my son ever going to learn how to give orders and expect them to be followed if he stays soft?”
“But he’s only a boy!” Margaret cried in protest.
“Boys turn into men, and if he doesn’t develop the strength it takes to take command now, he will be no more than a useless wimp!”
But Margaret won out. Michael agreed to allow Peter to live at home, but insisted that he attend formal school.
To suppress the tendency in his son to be fair to the working class, Michael hired on a new staff of servants who were instructed that his son’s orders had to be followed, or else! The over-attentive nurturing from nannies was over! He paid the attending butlers and maids to see to Peter’s every need and want – large or small – with the hopes of stunting his sense of compassion and increasing the selfish desire in him to be served.
Michael kept the cracking whip of his domineering will over Peter, as well as over the cortege, making sure they did as he said and not as his wife said. But when one hires on clever servants, who can suppress their cleverness? They can outwit even the scheming mind of the man who hired them. Such was the nature of the menials hired by Michael. They were a scheming gang of Thespians who knew how to practice the art and skill of prevarication with the greatest of professionalism. They were specialists in hiding the truth behind the veil of flattery and played both sides of the court when it came to Michael’s and Margaret’s wishes.
The servants were well aware of the clash of ideals between Michael and Margaret; and as a consequence, these sycophantic individuals targeted Peter in every instance with extra heaps of vain-filled compliments and outlandish praises, doing so in a most capricious manner in Michael’s presence to gain his favor. And while Michael was away, they pretended to be the paragon of values and qualities for the boy in Margaret’s presence. This fulsome behavior of the servants led Peter, who was not only a victim but a witness of this deceit, to distrust nearly everyone around him.
The rhetoric the servants bathed him in for the sake of gaining Michael’s favor, and the pretense of sincerity they cloaked over him for winning Margaret’s favor, fell on his eyes as a drama being enacted by them to please each of his parents for the sole sake of keeping their jobs. Thus, whenever anything was said to him with pretended sincerity, he did not believe it. And whenever he was praised, he closed his ears to it all.
Michael played the gallant man. The artistic style, manner, speech, and appearance he donned, added flare to his name and fame; for being a success in business was as much a talent of the tongue as it was the cleverness of the mind. He used his body as a mannequin and dressed it to fit the occasion; and then like a prince who knew nothing about running the realm, attended every gala in search of festivity, and behaved as though he was in charge of everything. Cunning practices require cunning artifices. The gullible believed his every word, but what of men more conniving and powerful than him? Well, they would try to use him as their instrument.
Michael was as sly as a fox at some points and as vulnerable as the chicken at others. But being as well educated as he was, he strove to minimize his risks and maximize his advantages. By sheer extraordinary ingenuity and cleverness, he was able to use his education in such a manner, where he could outfox the slyest men and build a fortune from textiles and shipping where ordinary-motivated men would have failed.
The smell of the sea beckoned him
egalia was Michael’s blood as much as the sea breeze was the breath of his lungs. He was at home on the sea as much, if not more so, as he was on land. The yearning to feel the exhilaration of the ocean life at times taunted him when he was land bound, and the desire to put his feet on stable ground while floating over the endless ocean waves gnawed at his inner-most being.
Michael was land bound in Chicago for two years. The fluster of ballroom gatherings, social galas and important business meetings – all of which were held in the flamboyant style for which royalty was highly envied, were becoming boring to him. The smell of the sea was beckoning him like the aroma of food would call a hungry person to feast. Business weighed as heavy on his shoulders as a bundle of firewood upon the back of a peasant in some remote country, seeking freedom from his toils.
Michael’s charm often turned raspy and frayed at the edges when he could not escape the pressures of business as quickly as he desired. No one knew this better than the servants and his poor wife who had to pretend everything was all right, even though it wasn’t. There could be no show of discontentment in Margaret’s visage. Only the closest onlookers and most astute and perceptive of friends could read the truth that radiated from her eyes; but from the casual onlooker’s point of view, of which there were hundreds, Michael’s family seemed to be storybook perfect.
His partners were dandies whose hearts were like steel bank vaults. They too played their part in the drama with extreme skill. Their cordiality was refined to perfection. They portrayed themselves as men with hearts of compassion and social concern when they were in the public eye, and behaved like demons in private. They were men who loved to dress in the cloak of artifice and had a strange respect for anyone else who possessed the shrewdness it took to do it as effectively.
Although they knew Michael’s glace’ appearance was donned for affects, they still exhibited a remarkable admiration toward him and his family; for the need to please him, and avoid displeasing him, was vital to their careers. They, as well as Michael, loved to captivate others by the illusion of happiness and were intoxicated by the power to draw envy and jealousy from all those who wanted what they had, but could not attain it.
Michael certainly was the king of the hill. He had a spacious, sixty-room, three-story mansion adjacent to Lake Michigan with his own private dock and beach, and one thousand acres of beautifully landscaped grounds, not to mention a fleet of merchant ships, and numerous textile mills all over New England. He also had a great deal of control over most of the industrialists and politicians in the city, all of which earned him the unofficial title ‘Baron of Chicago’.
Michael, no doubt, was a man entirely centered on himself. He liked only his own ideas and had very little respect or tolerance for the opinions of others. He felt that coming from a long line of prestigious English noblemen gave him the superior edge in shaping the fashions and opinions by which others should live. It was definitely a distasteful thought for him to think that he should live by their ideas. There was no doubt that clogged his mind regarding himself as one of the last of the aristocratic gentility that was left over from the royal ranks to suffer among the commonalty of man.
For the most part, Michael’s life was influenced more by his grandfather than his own father. Michael’s father, Alexander, was a man of military missions in the service of Britain’s Queen Victoria. As a top-notch engineer, he was needed in British territories around the world to oversee the construction of bridges.
Alexander was a wealthy man in his own right. Although he could have lived the pleasurable life without ever a day of toil, he enjoyed his position as Royal Engineer and the adventure and travel that went with the job.
Alexander had an ironclad will and ordered that Michael be put into a private boarding school. This served to sadden Victoria’s heart and isolate Michael from her maternal guidance.
But Michael caught the caring eye of his grandfather, Alexander Sr., who wanted to take him under his wing in the absence of Michael’s own father. He besought his daughter-in-law, Victoria, for permission to take his grandson sailing with him on short shipping jaunts during weekends, vacations and holidays when he was in port. Secretly, Victoria was pleased that Michael had the guidance of his grandfather.
t was a beautiful spring day as a carriage rolled up the long, winding road to Hillcrest Academy. Alexander Sr. stepped from the carriage and beckoned the driver’s attention. “I shall be requiring your continued services,” he informed in an authoritative tone. The driver nodded in acknowledgment. Alexander Sr. then approached the doors of the academy and entered. Seeing the secretary was absent from her post, he took it upon himself to poke his head into the office of the dean.
“LO AND BEHOLD!” he yelled out. “IF IT ISN’T CRAB-FISH CRAWFORD!” The dean looked up as surprised as could be. And as recognition came over his face, he dropped his work to his desk and stood up.
“Well, if it isn’t, Sea Serpent Smith! Come in, come in!” he prompted as he walked toward Alexander. “What brings you to Hillcrest Academy?”
“First, let me take a look at you,” Alexander Sr. replied as he cast his eyes over his old acquaintance. “It seems you’re carrying a little too much cargo in your hull there,” and he slapped the back of his hand against the flab of Crawford’s stomach. The captain put his fists to his waist with his elbows winged out and looked into Crawford’s eyes as he spoke. “How did a messmate become the dean of a boy’s academy?”
“That was twenty years ago – you ol’ sea dog; since then I’ve become something.”
Alexander gave a hearty laugh. “I’ll hand that to you!”
Crawford asked Alexander to take a seat. He then walked around to the back of his desk and sat down. Repeating his question Crawford asked, “So what brings you here?”
Alexander answered bluntly. “My grandson has been sentenced to this place. I’ve come to break him out.”
“Your grandson…?”
“Yes, Michael Smith.”
“Do you mean Michael Alexander Smith?” Crawford questioned. “Well! Will wonders ever cease?! He’s one of our brightest boys.” A proud smile came over the captain’s face. The dean, concealing his real feelings, put on strong airs of praise. After a small chat the dean asked, “So what are your plans for your grandson?”
“Well Mate, I have cargo to unload at Spain’s Port of Cadiz and I want my grandson to accompany me.”
The dean raised his bushy eyebrows then squinted as though he was wrestling with a thought. “How long will this little jaunt take?”
Alexander placed his elbow on the arm of the chair as he leaned to one side. “Good weather and smooth sailing – about fifteen days.”
An expression came over the dean’s face that reflected some concern. “Captain,” he stated with scholarly tact, “releasing your grandson at this time will be a bit of a sticky wicket. Spring finals will be in session in one week, and we have very strict rules concerning leaves during this period. Even if by force of compelling circumstances any boy had to be dismissed early, he would have to make up the work.”
“Where’s your sense of ingenuity gone Mate? When you wanted leave from my ship against my objections, could I ever prevent it?” Crawford smiled. “Ah, so you admit it!” Alexander humorously accused.
“Oh yes, I admit it! Because I’m here, and with twenty years behind me. Twenty years that separate me from your scurvy wrath.”
“Have a heart man.” Alexander got up from the chair. He walked over to the window then turned and stared down at Crawford’s face.
“The boy’s father is in some mosquito-ridden place in some forsaken part of the world. And his son, my grandson, needs me. Now I’m not willing to let you cause injury to his tender heart by letting you stand in the way of me sharing my life with him.”
“Do – not – threaten – me – Captain! I’m not someone who you can force to jump to your orders anymore!” With this statement both men glared at each other with determined threats in their eyes.
“Look you gully rat!” the captain insulted. “I’m sailing to Cape Town in one month. I’ll be gone for a spell, and I’ll be horn-swaggled if I…”
Crawford stood up and interrupted him. “I’m not a galley servant anymore Captain. I have responsibilities and duties far beyond your social standing and I’m not as free as you to do as I please.”
A slow-burning rage started to heat up in Alexander’s heart. His stare became harsh and seemed to pierce the dean’s armor of protection. “See here Captain,” Crawford objected. “I’m only an executive, hired to keep one hundred and twenty boys well-fed, well-ordered, well-educated, and well-disciplined. That figure,” he continued, “interprets to one hundred and twenty fathers who pay king’s wages to place their sons in this school, and men whom I cannot afford to displease, and that includes your own son, who has his own ideas about how he wants his son raised and watched over!”
“You think you can hit a dirty blow like that to me, you ungrateful bilge slop!” The dean stood firm. His closed mind reflected in every crease and line on his face.
Alexander to took on a tone less than pity, “You found your place in life all right, this graveyard is where the dead belong!”
“You can insult me to your little mind’s content, but the boy stays!”
“Men such as you…” The captain began to say…
“Men like me what Captain?!” The dean snapped, cutting Alexander’s sentence short.” Do you know how many mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers I have to discourage from babying their kin? I get dozens of sad, sob stories that would wrench any heart to tears. But the fact of it is, your son has put his son in this school to become a man, and a man he shall become!”
The conversation was over! And a seemingly longstanding friendship turned into what past positions would not have ever allowed. Alexander walked toward the door and grabbed the handle. He turned around, “I’ll get my grandson!”
“You can have your grandson when spring finals are over, and not before!”
Alexander opened the door and gave him a stare that promised action then slammed the door as he exited. He left the academy with haste and threw himself into the awaiting carriage. Without any loss of time he ordered the driver to take him to the house of an old acquaintance, hopeful that a long-awaited favor could be asked of him.
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