What Does It Mean To Be Mechanical?

The Merriam Webster definition of a machine is “an assemblage of parts that transmit forces, motion, and energy one to another in a predetermined manner.” Take away our usual surroundings and routines we can suddenly see our own mechanical patterns. This is apparent when we go on retreat.

We can have some of the same insight in the midst of a great shock or loss. This happened to me on the Metro North train one day. The train pulled into a station, the doors slid open and a young woman got on and sat down next to Alexandra and I. As soon as the train started rolling again, the woman asked us if we would mind watching her lunch box while she went to the rest room. We happened to be facing a shiny new poster that read: “If you see something, say something,” meaning that passengers should alert conductor to any suspicious objects or activities because they might be bombs or bombers.

After hesitating, I nodded yes to the smiling young woman and Alex looked at me and did the same and the woman trotted off up the aisle. After all, this was clearly a perfectly innocent lunch box and we had to guard against losing all civility and reason in the wake of this tragedy, didn’t we? But the woman didn’t come back for what seemed a very long time.

Alex and I put our heads together to confer. Should we really turn this lunch box over to the conductor? It wasn’t ticking. Still, the technology of the terrorists could be subtle and didn’t this woman’s very niceness make her the best candidate for a terrorist? This is the way everybody thought in those days. It’s strange to remember now how it seemed in those days as if anything could happen.

“I hate this!” Alex said. “I want it to be over!” I agreed, and I didn’t just mean this lunch box incident but this whole time when no one seemed to trust their own senses or instincts or their ability to reason their way through things–this time when I felt like a ghost hovering over what was happening instead of a real self. How hard it was not to know what to do, to feel so confounded. Waiting is mental torture, I decided. The inner attack dogs, bred of old hurts and fears, start to stir. I had to do something.

I suggested to Alex that we open the lunch box and look inside to put our minds at ease. She looked at me like I was crazy. Hadn’t I seen any movies or TV shows in my whole long life? If it’s a bomb, opening it will make it explode! She snapped open her CD player, took out the stormy, dramatic Fellowship of the Rings disk she’d been listening to, and clicked in a CD of upbeat music. She explained that she was picking a soundtrack with a happy ending.

I told her this was magical thinking, that I was confusing real life with a movie. She asked me if I had a better idea. I did not. Just wait, I said, which felt like a helpless response, an admission of powerlessness in the situation. In about a minute, the young woman swept back into her seat and thanked us. Alex turned to me with a smile of satisfaction.

Spiritual truths are situational and particular. What we understand is specific to that time and place and to our state of being. Unlike scientific truths, as Ravi Ravindra discusses in the upcoming issue, spiritual truth is qualitative rather than quantitative, repeatable.

It feels more authentic to me to draw spiritual truth from the real material of my life rather than trading in abstractions. In hindsight, “Just wait” could have been passed off in the telling as a reasonable thing to say and a wise approach–when in doubt, do nothing…don’t just do something, sit there. What I really felt, however, was a great gaping lack inside…of clarity, of inner balance or coordination. I wasn’t all there. I was just parts, bits of thought and sensation, captivated by what was happening.

What do you think it means to be mechanical?