Enlightenment - $9.50

This morning as I hailed a cab on East 79th Street, I carried with me my purse, a plastic bag of Heineken bottles and vanilla vodka that clanked as I slid into the back seat (long story), and an exquisite bouquet of aromatic spring flowers.

I carried with me reluctant anticipation of my morning run, happy that I had the time for it and unsure if I had the energy, but knowing I would try anyway. I carried a mental checklist of daily responsibilities, brewing excitement for upcoming events, and a tightly wound ball of love and concern for the special people in my life.

No sooner did my driver compliment me on the flowers than he launched into a sermon of his personal beliefs.

"Oh God, one of these," I thought to myself, hoping that cross-town traffic would be light. A few sentences in, though, I realized this was no fundamentalist tirade or nonsensical stream of consciousness. It was an honest attempt to share with me the basic, yet frequently ignored tools of personal enlightenment.

It started with philosophies and suggestions I've heard before. Find your strength within. Know thyself. If you spend life trying to win the rat race, even if you win, you're still merely a rat. Too many people succumb to spending their lives in search of success and once it is found, they have lost their soul. Inner truth, personal enlightenment.

And I didn't even mind him pushing his religious agenda on me since it was a religion in which I actually have an academic interest.

Half-knowing how naïve I sounded, I smiled and innocently inquired “Are you talking about Buddhism?”

“VERY GOOD!” he applauded, and I mentally patted myself on the back for being moderately well-read on the subject. This pride, this sense of accomplishment, however, was precisely that which he was arguing against.

"But it's so much more than that. Let me ask you a question: What is the fundamental problem with human nature?"

I didn’t know.

"Answer me this: what is our purpose for being on this planet?"

I considered saying something pithy- like, to love one another, to create something that lasts longer than we do.
Instead I said “I. Have. No. Idea.”

"And that is the problem."

He then persevered through broken English,

"We try to give our existence meaning through the material world, through accomplishments and education. Through money. We need to define our purpose for living through tangible successes. We define it with churches and gods, schools of belief that are limiting and render us untrue to our inner selves. The truth lies not in Lord Jesus, or Buddha - it is not written in the Bible or Koran or Bhagavad Ghadi. It can only be found within yourself. And once you know yourself, once you achieve that enlightenment, you can share it. You MUST share it. You must awaken the heart and soul of others. Share the knowledge, share the love. Devote yourself to selfless service. When you feed the birds on the street, you're feeding the creative power."

A hint of Zen, sure, but this had nothing to do with religion at all.

As we wove our way to the western edge of Central Park, I found myself wishing traffic would slow down.

He continued talking for the rest of the drive - pearls of wisdom pouring out at such a rate I couldn't re-articulate them if I tried.

His advice wasn't anything I hadn't heard before in some shape or form. What moved me about this was pure circumstance - the unexpected and rare gift of human connection and shared wisdom for no other reason that the fact that we are alive, breathing, and for the next 15 minutes or so - sharing this confined space. Let's learn from it.

"You are my sister," he said. "You are a child of the universe."

"Of course." I said. I smiled. "Thank you," he said.

"Right or left side?" Hello, reality. As I swiped my credit card payment, complete with 20% tip, he continued to implore me to search inside myself. And when I find it, whatever it may be...share it. Share it with my boyfriend who bought me the beautiful flowers that sparked the conversation to begin with. Share it with the people you love and the people you don't understand. It's universal and it's good and nobody can argue with that.

Because everyone, at the end of the day, has to answer to themselves.