Stumbling Into Infinity: An Ordinary Man in the Sphere of Enlightenment

by Michael Fischman

Overview

Stumbling Into Infinity is the intimate and sometimes startling account of Michael Fischman’s spiritual journey and the encounter that changed his life forever. 

His story opens on a flight to India, as he reflects on the unusual chain of events that led him from a challenging childhood to his unexpected role as friend and helper to a renowned humanitarian and spiritual leader. 

Michael Fischman’s fascinating and personal memoir takes us into the compassionate and mysterious world of an enlightened seer. It is a compelling narrative that blends remarkable experiences with an inner struggle and search for meaning.
 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781600376481
Publisher:	Morgan James Publishing
Publication date:	10/22/2010
Pages:	296
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Michael Fischman is a leader in the field of personal development.

He is a founding member and current president of the U.S. Art of Living Foundation, a global non-profit educational and humanitarian organization, and is also the CEO of the APEX course, the corporate training division of the International Association for Human Values, an NGO founded by spiritual leader and humanitarian Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

A former advertising executive with Ogilvy & Mather, and an inspiring speaker, Fischman travels across the U.S. and around the world leading personal-development seminars that bring greater peace, awareness, and fulfillment to daily life. 

He currently lives in Boca Raton, Florida.

 

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

The Disappearance of Faith

One night, when I Was about three years old, while my parents and sister were asleep in our cramped, one-bedroom apartment in the South Bronx, I awoke before dawn and saw Grandpa. Transparent as a mist of smoke, he stood still in our bedroom doorway. With his white hair, crystal-blue eyes, pencil-thin mustache, and his double-breasted pinstripe suit, he looked as though he wanted to say something to me, but he couldn't speak.

I didn't know why he was there, and his appearance frightened me. I was so scared that I screamed. I remember my sister, Sharyn, sitting up in bed, and pointing at the doorway, howling. The sound of her screaming terrified me even more.

All this noise woke my parents, but they didn't seem to see Grandpa, and they didn't understand what was wrong. Incapable of explaining, we continued to cry and scream. It took some time to calm us down, but finally, after some warm milk and cookies, we were able to go back to sleep.

Maybe it was because our parents wanted to protect our innocence that they kept Grandpa's death a secret. It was a long time before I understood why he was no longer around. And it was many years before I realized that Grandpa's death had coincided with the time of his mysterious visit.

I was born on September 11, 1954, in the middle of a hurricane. New Yorkers had been glued to their radios and newspapers for several days, with the New York Weather Bureau predicting the worst storm in the region's recorded history. Thousands of people along the Eastern Seaboard were evacuated, and the Navy abandoned hundreds of aircraft and warships.

My mother would often remind me that I was born in a double-eyed hurricane, as if this added uncertainty explained my nature.

As far back as I can remember, I was preoccupied with death; aware that I wasn't going to live forever. I would lie in bed buried beneath my covers, hold my breath, and imagine what it would be like to be dead. Would I live under the earth in a coffin for the rest of eternity? Was there really a heaven? More frightening than the loss of my body was the prospect of losing my mind. Who would I be if I didn't have my thoughts, memories, or feelings?

Whenever these terrifying thoughts arose, I panicked. I prayed to God, hoping that if I never fought with my sister again and listened to my mother when she told me to turn off the TV, maybe then I wouldn't have to die.

My mental storms calmed on our yearly vacations at the Shady Nook bungalow colony in upstate New York, even my thoughts about death. But once we were back among the tall buildings, crowded streets, and the rumbling of the elevated subway cars, my fear of death would return. After only a few days, our vacation seemed like a far-away dream. And I knew that, just like our summer vacation, my life would someday be over. I was desperate to understand why we had to go through life at all if someday it had to end.

I couldn't speak to my parents about my fear of death. When I tried, they didn't know how to respond. My mother, a heavyset woman with blue eyes and a protruding chin, did not want to talk about such things. She would hold me close, pull my head to rest against her cushy breasts, and stroke my forehead. "Shush!" she would say, looking into my eyes. "You are just a child. Why do you worry about such things?"

My mother thought it was unnatural for a young boy to be obsessed with such gloomy thoughts. To change the subject, she would turn on the TV and encourage me to watch a show with her.

My father, Sol Fischman, liked to lounge around in pajamas while he listened to the radio or read the Yiddish daily newspaper, The Forward. A Holocaust survivor who had emigrated to the United States in his late thirties, he simply kept quiet when I mentioned my fear of death. He spoke often about his past and told stories about the war, but there was a dark cloud around him when the topic of death came up.

Over time, I became increasingly determined to understand the meaning of life and death. I longed to find truth, to find God.

When I was six, my father sent Sharyn and me to an Orthodox Jewish school called Yeshiva Torah Ve-Emunah to learn about our heritage, laws, and traditions.

Riding to school on a dilapidated yellow school bus that smelled of leaking gasoline and our driver's cigarette smoke, I usually entered the yeshiva (school) feeling nauseous and wanting to go home. My queasiness continued throughout the day. The gloomy décor didn't help. The classroom walls were a pale lime-yellow, and the rooms were dimly lit by low-hanging, exposed, incandescent light bulbs. Accumulated layers of paint sealed most of the windows, so fresh air was a rare commodity. The only thing modern about our school was the frosted windows that prevented outsiders from looking in — and kept us from looking out.

We began our day with prayers and lessons on the Chumash — the five books of Moses (the Bible). My favorite story was about Abraham, the father of monotheism, partly because, unlike me, he was able to stand up to his father. According to Jewish tradition, Abraham was born in Babylonia, the son of Terach, an idol merchant. From his early childhood, he questioned the faith of his father and sought the truth. He came to believe that the entire universe was the work of a single God and began to teach this belief to others. Abraham tried to convince his father of the folly of idol worship.

One day, when Abraham was left alone to mind the store, he took a hammer and smashed all of the idols except the largest one. He then placed the hammer in the hand of the largest idol. When his father returned and asked what happened, Abraham said, "The idols got into a fight, and the big one smashed all the other ones." His father said, "Don't be ridiculous. These idols have no life or power. They can't do anything." Abraham replied, "Then why do you worship them?"

I remember the rabbi telling our class that all of the Jewish souls from all times were actually present on Mount Sinai and heard the voice of God when the law was given to Moses. The rabbi told our class that, in biblical times, God chose the most worthy of all people, the Jews, to receive his law, the Ten Commandments. He explained that somehow our ancient souls, which contain this memory, bind our people together as a nation, keeping us close to God.

As an adult, I became aware that questioning is an honored part of the Jewish tradition. But as a small boy, I was met with stern looks from the rabbis when I questioned the stories of my religion. "Rabbi, was Moses really a prophet of God, or did he mess up somehow?" I asked. "If Moses was such an extraordinary person who could receive direct communication from Almighty God in the form of a burning bush and the Ten Commandments, how was it that he could lead his people into the Promised Land but not enter the Promised Land himself?" My teachers would usually greet such questions with a forced smile, followed by a frown.

The rabbis at my yeshiva were strict and harsh. If we were slow learners or misbehaved, they thought it was amusing to pull our ears or pinch our cheeks until we screamed. For more serious crimes, they struck us with rulers, sometimes using a special double-thick ruler. Since I couldn't learn at the same pace as the other students (due to what I later learned was dyslexia), I was punished often.

Nevertheless, I still loved learning about my heritage.

Unlike most boys, who thrived on sports trivia about Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris, I was attracted to stories about the rabbis who were considered tzaddiks, men of God. They were leaders, learned in Jewish law, loving toward family and community, at peace with themselves, and one with the Divine. More than anything, I wanted to be like them, inspiring people and living fearlessly in communion with the Divine, beyond mundane existence. This goal of Jewish life was, for me, the only thing worth striving for.

I began to love God, feeling His presence with me always. I was certain I'd become a rabbi, a man of God, and follow in the footsteps of such tzaddiks as King Solomon, Rabbi Akiva, or the Bal Shem Tov, the father of the Chassidic sect of Judaism.

This love affair with God lasted until I was eight, ending with the death of my maternal grandmother.

* * *

By her standards, Grandma was successful. She had brought five children into the world, and I was one of more than a dozen grandchildren.

Grandma had come to live with us when I was seven, four years after Grandpa died. As a young woman, she and my grandfather were among the lucky ones who had been able to travel to America and escape the Russian pogroms — the massacres and riots against Jews that were instigated by Russia's czarist government. The pogroms brought destruction to personal property and murder to the lives of many Jews. Grandma would weep as she told me horrible stories about the soldiers and policemen who had terrorized her family.

She was my closest friend and companion; the one who'd perfected the art of matzo ball soup and stuffed cabbage, and who sometimes protected me from my dad. Sometimes when we sat together watching the evening news, she would praise me during the commercials. "You know you're a very sweet boy, Michaela," she'd say in her thick accent, stroking my face with her coarse, wrinkled fingers. "You're different than the other grandchildren. When you grow up you're going to do something important. You'll be able to help people and make them happy." I'd nod my head, not fully sure what she meant or what she was seeing in me.

But as time passed, Grandma played with me less and less. She became frail and bedridden, and eventually needed constant nursing care and attention. I would sit beside her and hold her hand, but her blank expression was nothing like the loving Grandma I knew.

One day, after Grandma's nurse left her room, I sat in the chair by her bed, held her limp hand, and searched her impassive face for signs that she remembered me. Even though it was summer in New York, she wore a pink flannel nightgown and had a hot water bottle near her feet. A white porcelain bedpan and a roll of toilet paper sat close to her bed, and the smell of rubbing alcohol permeated her room.

Then, without warning, her breath stopped. I ran to tell the nurse and my mother what had happened, hoping they could do something to revive her. But I knew that Grandma was gone. I stood shaking, as though I'd been dipped in ice water. I'd seen death.

The burning, gnawing pain in the center of my gut was unbearable. I cried so much that I couldn't breathe. It no longer felt safe to love anyone, not even God.

I sought hope by asking the head rabbi at our school if there was anyone — a pious or learned man, a tzaddik, or even a rich king — who had learned the secret of living forever. The rabbi scowled as if I was sacrilegious, telling me to go back to class and stop being so foolish.

During third grade, my family moved to Mosholu Parkway, a more affluent Jewish neighborhood in the Bronx. It was too far to travel to the yeshiva, so we were enrolled in the public school and continued our Jewish education by attending Hebrew school in the late afternoons.

After the loss of my grandmother, life held less and less meaning, and school became harder. I had problems adjusting to the ethnic diversity of the new school and felt like an outsider. Like others, I was afraid of the gang members. Being short, Jewish, and, at the time, overweight, I was often picked on and beaten up after school, and once, even threatened with death. A poor reader and an atrocious speller, I also found it difficult to keep up with the class. Yet I excelled in verbal skills and was always chosen as the lead in class plays.

Partly as a reaction to living with a family of immigrant refugees, I developed the skill of speaking clearly. I had an innate ability to engage people and make them laugh when I told stories. As a teenager, I had thoughts of becoming a radio announcer or TV host, but had no real idea of where my abilities would lead.

* * *

Although I disliked school, there was one teacher who inspired me. It was 1964, and my whole fourth-grade class was enamored with Mr. Schwartz, our young social studies teacher. He had a goatee and dressed in a soft corduroy jacket, knitted tie, and Hush Puppies. His light-brown hair hung below his ears and made him appear a bit shabby. Everyone thought he must be a beatnik, but I thought he was cool.

One day during a lesson on Asian history, he spoke to the class about karma and reincarnation.

"This is the wheel of birth and death," he said, drawing a circle on the blackboard. "Hindus and Buddhists believe in the law of karma, the law of action and its results. Whatever you do binds you to this wheel of life and death again and again. The only way to get off this wheel is to have a centered mind and live an earthly life of good deeds, devotion, and prayer to God. Otherwise you have to keep coming back, lifetime after lifetime."

This was the missing link, the knowledge I had been looking for. I wanted to shout and shake everyone in the class and tell them, "Can't you see? This is it! We don't really die. We just leave the body for a little while. Then we come back to learn more lessons, one day — hopefully — finally getting it." I felt so relieved and wanted to learn more.

I didn't realize then how significant this realization would turn out to be, planting a seed that would blossom in years to come.

My thoughts about death, and now karma and reincarnation, were nearly impossible to share with my family, especially with my father, who was very Old World and conservative.

I was also frightened of my dad and shied away from telling him anything that he could react against or might upset him. He was easily angered, and I never knew how he might take something I said or did. I was terrified when my father became enraged, since it would only be a matter of time before his stinging hand would meet my face. My father would hit me for little things, like snipping off my bangs, getting dirty while playing, or frightening my sister. Sharyn and I were trained to be on our best behavior when he was home.

One time, when my father saw the poor grades on my report card, his face turned red with rage. He went mad, unbuckled his belt, and growled at me to lie down on my bed. He had done this before. I buried my face in a pillow. I could hear his heavy breathing and the sound of the belt slipping out of his pants. I wished someone would save me, but no one could stop my dad when he got like this. Not even my mother. Then came his command to pull down my pants. I guess his intention was to whip my bared behind, but he was indiscriminate as he beat me, and I screamed into the pillow.

Sometimes I bled. Most of the time my skin would burn like fire from the blisters and bruises. My mother would comfort me and tend to my wounds. She prevented me from going to school until the bruises healed, embarrassed and afraid to let the teachers and other children see. I was ashamed too. I swore that if I had kids I would never do this to them.

When he wasn't losing his temper or reprimanding me, he would cuddle up on the couch and tickle me with his unshaved whiskers, and I knew he loved me. But when he turned his rage on me, I would search his eyes for that love and wonder why it wasn't there.

When I was eleven, I did something wrong in school, and in the evening my dad found out. He grabbed me by the ear and dragged me into my room. He pulled out his belt and terror came over me. But instead of beating me, he simply said, "You're too big for this now."

And with that, it was over.

Maybe someone had intervened, the school principal, or perhaps a teacher.

A psychologist might look back on his abusive behavior as a symptom of post-traumatic stress disorder from the war. But for me, the trauma was long lasting, making me afraid to take risks, and affecting my self-esteem and relationships for many years.

I rarely spoke about these events with my father, even as an adult. Once, when I was about twenty years old, while out to dinner, he brought up how he had treated me, and expressed how awful he felt. He looked down at the table and fidgeted with the saltshaker. There was sadness in his eyes and heaviness in his breath. I soon moved the conversation to another subject. I didn't have the heart to make him feel worse. It was clear that he had also been a victim.

* * *

Born in 1914, in Czestochowa, Poland, to a middle-class Jewish family, my dad stood only five-foot four inches, with a bald head, barrel chest, and a well-defined Ashkenazi (Central/East European Jewish) nose. He and his younger brother, my Uncle Terry, survived the Second World War together and were very close. The last time they saw their parents and sister alive was the night after Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement), the most solemn of the Jewish holidays. His parents hid in their apartment as my father and his brother got in the selection line for the Nazi work camps.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Stumbling Into Infinity"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Michael Fischman.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Prologue,
Part One,
One: The Disappearance of Faith,
Two: The White Album,
Three: A Taste of India,
Four: The Dharma Hunter,
Part Two,
Five: When the Student Is Ready â&8364;¦,
Six: Journey Into Stillness,
Seven: The Alchemy of Doubt,
Eight: Sitting Close,
Nine: First AIDS Course,
Ten: Teacher Training,
Eleven: Surrender & Samadhi,
Twelve: The Diamond Cutter,
Thirteen: Siddha, Buddha & the Amazing Tiger Swami,
Fourteen: The Heart of Desire,
Fifteen: A Fight at the Ashram,
Part Three,
Sixteen: The Caribbean King,
Seventeen: Coming Home,
Eighteen: The Way of Grace,
Epilogue,
Acknowledgments,
Further Exploration,

Editorial Reviews

Michael Fischman’s journey reveals how fears and negative emotions can be transformed into love, compassion, and higher consciousness when a student has an authentic relationship with a wise teacher.” — Deepak Chopra.

"Stumbling into Infinity has deep knowledge, humor, and moments of grace. Ultimately, this book will inspire you to see how much better your life — and the world — can be through meditation, service to others, and deep gratitude." — Carol Kline, co-author of the New York Times Bestsellers, "Happy for No Reason and Chicken Soup for the Mother’s Soul 2."

"The impact of India’s spiritual teachings on Americans has been deep and profound. Michael Fischman’s engaging memoir adds an important chapter to that history by personalizing it and shedding light on one of today’s most influential masters, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar." – Philip Goldberg, bestselling author of "American Veda" and "Roadsigns on the Spiritual Path."

"Michael Fischman's memoir is heartfelt and honest. He overcomes a difficult childhood and life, plagued by uncertainty and failure, to help lead a major spiritual movement."  –Amy Weintraub, author of "Yoga for Depression" and founding director of the LifeForce Yoga Healing Institute.
 

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