Awakening

by Mara Pennell, H.W.

”. . . his consciousness had ascended out of the madness of his captivity”

The weather was gloomy. It was cloudy, cold and grey. It matched my mood. There was a heaviness which enveloped the city as we boarded the bus. I don’t believe it was the history of the city which effected my mood. It was the feel of the city itself. Somber. It was my first time in Nuremberg, Germany.

Part of me felt as if I were on a pilgrimage. I was well aware of the history of the city. Not just the Nuremberg Trials which I studied in school, this place had a much darker history prior to World War II. It was at one time the location of the height of the Nazi party in the 1930’s. This was where Adolph Hitler addressed enormous crowds of people.

Those buildings still stood. You can see the outdoor arena built to stage his speeches. Much of this still stands all over Germany as a reminder. A reminder to not only the German people, but to the entire world, of the horrors endured by people who the Nazi party made the “other”. That’s how it begins. Not just the Nazi regime of the early and mid 20th Century, but with every other atrocity in history of the world, someone is made the “other”. It strips people of their humanity and it becomes easy to treat them as subhuman, or not human at all, and it makes it easy to do horrible things.

This was not the full extent of my pilgrimage. I knew our bus tour included a place that somehow felt more personal. We would see The Hague and we would see Nuremberg Prison. I knew the Nazi’s who were charged with war crimes had been placed in this prison awaiting trial, I also knew it was still a working prison, but this was not my interest. My interest was much more personal. I knew it was where my greatest spiritual teacher was imprisoned in the 1930’s as a spy working with the Underground.

I am not going to list the atrocities he endured. I will share his belief that the people who ended in the gas chambers were the lucky ones. He spent a long time incarcerated there. His captors did not want to kill an American in prison. It would cause too many complications. Their plan seemed to be to break him, to push him over the edge into a mental breakdown. They knew and developed techniques of torture which would seem as if they were about to kill him and then they stopped just short of that intention. They knew how to use pain and deprivation to try to destroy the mind of an individual.

In their trying to break him, he had a breakthrough. They likely thought he was having a breakdown, but he reached an awareness which literally and figuratively freed him. He came to the glorious awareness that whatever they did to him, they could not touch his true essence. Even if they killed him, his consciousness would still exist somewhere. He began to laugh aloud, very loudly, as he laid on the cell floor after another beating. His cell mate likely thought he had descended into madness. What had really happened was his consciousness had ascended out of the madness of his captivity. He had discovered his own true nature and it could never be taken from him. Strangely, he was released the next day. I suspect his captors thought they had broken him, that they had pushed him into madness. The Truth was they had pushed him into sanity. His captors told him he was free. His response was, “I know it!”

As we passed the prison, tears streamed down my cheeks. Not just because of his torture, but even more for lessons he lived on to share. The lesson of freedom. The lesson which informs us we are consciousness conscious of consciousness. No matter what we find ourselves going through in our lives, who we are is always free. Nothing can take away our true nature. For me it is the greatest gift I have ever received. I will cherish it always and pass it on to all I teach.