Unity Center

It was a balmy, sunlit Spring Saturday with racing shells from Ivy League colleges strewn across the river, with each sweating crew trying to etch their passage in the waters as a frantic prelude to Regatta records. Sunlight crackled across the river and laid a path to the upcoming Hudson. Shored boathouses and structures flew by almost unnoticed and then magic happened in our boat and within me. The seat chocks banged in unison to the Coxswain's mallet knocks as he raised the beat to a "Power 40" and higher.

Each of our eight oars cleaved the waters and escaped them with all "feathering" to perfection as the boat seemed to leave the clutching waters and rise above them. We were as one, as the boat drove ahead of the pack and I felt a great silence and peace within and I felt annointed from my own sweat. Serenity seemed to come aboard and that was my first encounter with Spirituality, though I didn't realize it till years later, but I never forgot its birthing within me. And I've experienced it many times since and came to recognize it and find that name for it, "Spirituality." It has nothing to do with churches or religions: it has to do with people coming together for common purpose and gaining uncommon peace in fulfillment with a Higher Power.

Coming back to the moment, I wondered how many of the musicians might feel my river beneath them as I felt in their music; and how many of those young people felt a part of the Whole in playing and personal, individual fulfillment of their coming together.

For It is the Higher Power which dwells within you; which has always dwelt within you, but from which you turn your head away in disbelief of your own worthiness to contain such purity of spirit. You have made a prisoner of that Power in the cell of your own being, a cell barred by your feeling of inadequacy, inferiority, self-dislike, self-deprecation, and lack of confidence, worth or any real understanding; a prison of spiritual isolation.

Rather, uncork that holy vessel and release that magical Being that can weave miracles into your daily life. Rise above your old self, and be One with God for therein is your majesty as a whole person, your fulfillment as an individual and your birthright claim to immortality. Open yourself to the Infinite and allow your questing spirit to go forth and range the realms of possibilities in its search for truth.

You are One with the Whole which is equal to the sum of all Its Parts. That is the Spirit of God and the true essence of life.

Life is not merely the living of it, but more: It is the flow of a Life Force on a continuum - as a river - till it merges into the ocean of Infinite Being and Ultimate Truth, the quintessence of a God. Therein is the distillation of all life and time into the totality of creation... Nirvana, that state of explicit perfection which is the eventual destiny and ultimate end to each of our every beginnings.

Thus we pulse our changing lives into synchronized rhythm with the surging Life Force until perfect harmony is at last attained and crescendo reached when beginning and end are one. Thereupon the Part becomes the Whole, as a drop of water moving with the river eventually becomes the Eternal Sea and the Whole becomes greater than the sum of all its parts.

And I will flow back unto myself and encompass all for then I am One with the Supreme Being, my own Higher Power.

We are One!