The Hurricane Hunters

Have you ever heard of the hurricane hunters? I happened to see a show about them on TV a while back. They are a bunch of crazy guys who get into an airplane and *intentionally* fly into a full-blown hurricane. Now, I can't imagine there is any amount of money that could tempt someone into doing something like that. So, I have to assume that they do it for "fun". Think about it. Have you ever been on a commercial airliner flying through very rough weather? I'm talking about rough to the point where at least a couple of adults start sobbing audibly. Couples are holding hands across the aisles. The religious are praying closed eyed with folded hands. One such occasion is permanently etched on my mind. That kind of fear is beyond awful. So, why would someone *intentionally* fly into a storm that would make our worst nightmare of a storm look like a picnic? Well, they don't just fly into the storm, get knocked around and then fly out again. No, they fly into the "eye" of the hurricane.

Quick lesson on hurricanes: in case you didn't know already, hurricanes have an "eye" in the very center of their swirling wheel of destruction, and this hub is surprisingly calm! Clear blue sunny skies and absolutely breathlessly peaceful inside. You can fly in ANY direction from there and you won't find a peaceful spot for hundreds of miles, but in that nucleus of the the storm life is good; safe and secure, warm and sunny. And, it is fairly roomy even for an airplane. It seemed to me you could fly a plane around and around in there for as long as you wanted; as long as your fuel holds out anyway.

When I saw how they make their way post haste to the center and arrive at that peaceful heaven in the midst of hell, right then and there, I saw the attraction. I knew why they do it. That "eye" is the center of their universe. The supreme controlling point of the entire storm. You can't exactly see it with the naked eye, but they can see it with their radar and other fancy shmancy electronic equipment: they are at the center of it all and whichever way they "look" they can see it all. They know everything. They are safe and secure; completely still in the midst of god-awful turmoil. The folks on the ground have no clue what is going on other than what they saw on the news before the power went out. They don't know whether the storm is coming or going, getting worse or better. They might not be able think straight. They might even be in panic. Maybe their houses are being torn about, and all they know is that they are miserable, but the guys in the plane are good. They are like Sir Edmond Hillary sitting on the top of Mount Everest, looking at the world from above. Why do they do it? To me it is a question of vantage point, just like life in general.

What do we really crave most of all? The ultimate vantage point. The place where we can see how it all works, the secrets of the universe, and I think these mountain climbers and hurricane hunters are living a metaphor for the spiritual journey we are all on. When I was young I used to rock climb a lot in Colorado with a couple of entirely crazy daredevils, and we had a standard goofy reply whenever the inevitable onlooker asked why we did what we were doing: "It's kind of like hitting yourself in the head with a hammer. It feels so darned good when you're done." Same with the hurricane hunter: "It feels so darned good when you get to the eye". Same with the spiritual aspirant: "It feels so darned good when you reach the center", the supreme hub, the controlling point, the nucleus of the cosmological order.

How does one get to the center of the cosmos? Well, it stands to reason that one would first need to realize that he is on a journey, possess some sort of working system for understanding the nature of the journey, a "map" if you will, and finally a vehicle of some sort to transport him to the goal. Going back to the hurricane as a metaphor, the average Joe as I mentioned has a very limited understanding of his predicament, bracing and parrying, doing his best to survive for the moment. The idea of getting to the "eye" doesn't really occur to him. Similar is the plight of the average citizen of the cosmos; trying to stay out of trouble while still answering the call of his basic instincts and thereby remaining at the periphery of the "hurricane" with it's hidden beatific center. The point of getting to a hypothetical nucleus of his existence does not occur to him. He doesn't know that the cosmos is round and that it has a center which provides a vantage point from which he would be able to observe and completely understand the functioning of the entire universe; a place where he would be safe, peaceful, blissful. So he continues to flounder about aimlessly trying in vain to avoid pain and grasp pleasures through the accumulation of material objects, much like the man on the ground at the edge of the hurricane, hoping it will pass, then dreading the next one.

But one day when the time is right, maybe when he is fed up with his routine, along comes a savant who taps him on the head revealing the actual layout of his "hurricane", points the way to the "eye", gives him a suitable vehicle for the journey, a little nudge in the right direction and the journey begins. Does life get easier then? No, it probably gets worse; heading into the center of the storm, but if the aspirant is ready, that is OK. For now he understands his predicament, sees the goal and is headed in the right direction; a path that moments earlier he wasn't even aware of. Now he is moving steadily closer and closer to that supreme culminating point; the ultimate goal of life, and the day is sure to come when he will become ONE with that supreme "eye". Baba nam kevalam

Copyright 2007 Bruce Boyd and BabaNam.com