RENUNCIATION: A SHORT STORY

A man discovered, or rediscovered the meaning of renunciation when he stumbled on to YouTube films of the late pianist Van Cliburn playing Rachmaninoff concertos. Unfortunately, it was like handing candy to a baby, for after watching Van Cliburn, the man turned to his own collection of other Rachmaninoff recordings, played this time by pianists Rubinstein and Horowitz.

The price he paid for this was that the music, the melodies, stayed with him, along with the euphoric mood they generated in him, all the next day, to the extent that nothing else could get in.  He'd allowed his mind to be hijacked, taken hostage.

It was then that he recalled spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle's book The Power of Now. In it Tolle describes the present moment, the Now, as spaciousness. Buddhists call it emptiness, and the void. It is also God, Tolle said.

If one fills this space, or spaciousness, with all the sensory experiences available these days, including musical melodies, to say nothing of whatever floods the ear buds of all the cell phones and IPods that everyone has these days, then it is plain to see that there is no room for anything else, not the least of which is God.

The grace of this lesson left him humbled whereupon he returned to his renunciatory life.