Everybody Smokes. What’s Your Cigarette?
A Spiritual Story
I had just moved with my teenage daughter from my home in Santa Barbara to a rural area in the foothills of the Northern Sierra, throwing my lot in with 40 or so other spiritual aspirants. We had Satsang nearly every day that summer. It was a very exciting time. One morning in particular, Justin (also known as J Jaye Gold), my teacher and mentor, had given a talk. At the end of the talk I was feeling inspired to take some action toward fulfilling my spiritual hopes. I was so boldly motivated that when he asked if there were any questions, I stood up, which wasn’t something I had seen demonstrated in that particular compartment before. I said with conviction, “I feel I am ready to take action toward moving in the direction you have been describing and I want to know what my next step is.”
It was a pivotal moment for me. I was jumping into the unknown. Life was about to truly begin and I was ready for it. I waited, feeling open, sincere and brave. He took a moment to look at me and said, “Quit smoking cigarettes.”
Now before I go on with my story, I need to say a little something about cigarettes and me. I started smoking when I was 15. At this point in my story I was 30. I had quit many times using: patches, timers, and “cold turkey,” even hypnosis. But so far, I had always gone back to smoking.
I was still struggling with it, smoking one or two cigarettes a day on a good day, and ten or even more, on a bad day. So when Justin said, “quit smoking,” I thought, “Well yeah…I know I gotta do that. I’m definitely going to keep struggling with that for sure but what I’m looking for right now, is my next spiritual step.” Maybe I hadn’t done enough to convince him of how serious I was? I impressed upon him my utmost sincerity and willingness. He said again, “Quit smoking.”
“I had learned a few methods for increasing presence and impartiality but there were aspects of the system that were still unknown to me.”
So at this point I figured I needed to go into a little more detail about how smoking was something I was already struggling with and how I was wanting to move forward and felt ready for something that was in the direction of removing and identifying the obstacles that were between me and a finer state of being so that I could be a candidate for meditation.
I’d been around for a couple of years. I had learned a few methods for increasing presence and impartiality but there were aspects of the system that were still unknown to me.
I had just moved over 400 miles to participate with this community of seekers and immerse myself in the process of using those methods for the purpose of uncovering an inner experience that I felt was calling to me. After I laid out my case, with a most reasonable and thorough effort, he responded for a third time with, “Quit smoking.”
I was crushed. I believed he was asking me to do something that I had already tried to do and thus far, I had failed. It was a palpable feeling of, “That’s not what I’m looking for. I’ve already tried that. I want something else… something new.” I felt defeated, by him …and by cigarettes.
I was also just a little bit angry that I wasn’t getting my way. I finally said, “Okay. But if I’m going to do that, I’m going to need help. I’ve already tried to do that on my own.” He replied, rather cheerfully, “You can move to the upper 40 acres! You definitely can’t smoke up there.”
The “upper 40” was a beautiful piece of land, on the hill, in the woods above the main house. People who had arrived before me, built a large platform and erected a huge army tent as a central kitchen and common area.
Water was brought up in large storage containers for cooking and drinking and an outhouse was dug. About eight people had satellite tents in the surrounding woods. It was summertime and a very high fire danger area. He was right. You couldn’t smoke up there.
My daughter and I moved from the beautiful little upscale house where we were living nearby. A very large tent with two rooms was gifted to us and we spent the next month, living in the woods, surrounded by friends. For some reason, quitting smoking wasn’t that hard anymore. It was what I had to do and I had the supportive environment I needed to do it.
“I was wanting to move forward and felt ready for something that was in the direction of removing and identifying the obstacles that were between me and a finer state of being so that I could be a candidate for meditation.”
During that month I learned something about why it was important to quit smoking to move forward on the spiritual path, that wasn’t about smoking at all.
As an ex-smoker, I have the license to say that smoking is gross. A lot of people agree that it’s a destructive habit, not only to the person smoking but also to anyone in the vicinity. So it might seem obvious that a person with spiritual aspirations couldn’t have a habit like that. But everyone has his or her own “cigarettes.” Your “cigarette” is whatever you do, in a moment, to feel okay, to get out of a little bit of difficulty and thereby avoid seeing what’s truly going on with you. Your “cigarette” could be staying busy and productive, eating, exercise, blaming and being angry, talking to yourself in your head; everyone has a combination of different types of “cigarettes.”
Whatever we do in order to get immediate relief is our “cigarette” in the moment. For me, in those days, I used actual cigarettes as a way not only to escape my feelings of difficulty, but also to escape from the situation because to smoke one, I usually needed to walk away. That gave me a moment to regroup and get back in control. I hadn’t yet discovered the other things that I used, to do the same thing.
I learned during that month of not reaching for that cigarette, in what moments I had the urge and why I had the urge. I learned how accessing that relief was killing my chances of seeing what was really going on with me and understanding it.
In the years that followed that lesson, I was able to see more and more subtle manifestations of that same cycle of difficulty and relief in myself and in others. Lately the “cigarettes” I’m watching out for look really different.
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