Charles J. Carigan – 50th Reunion Essay

Charles J. Carigan

8365 Excalibur Circle, Apt K 3

Naples, FL 34108

charlesngale@gmail.com

239-260-1347

Spouse(s): Gale Entsminger (1969)

Career: investment broker (1976–2003)

College: Berkeley

The Sacred and the Profane

The particulars of my life will be of little interest: at Yale I was very lucky to be assigned to the audiovisual center for a bursary job; this position became the centerpiece of my life in New Haven. My financial situation was challenged, so it was good that I had an “extracurricular activity” that was slightly remunerative. Responsible for providing audio visual services throughout the university, in the predigital age of films, slides, PA systems, etc., I was exposed to classes, films, symposia, and sundry events in venues seldom seen by undergraduates, including the Medical School, the School of Art & Architecture, the Law School, Woolsey Hall, alumni reunions, the Yale Film Festival, among others. In my spare time I did my B.A. degree in English.

I lived with my girlfriend, Gale Entsminger, in an apartment at Chapel and Pearl streets, overlooking the U.S. Army Induction Center from which we could observe the draftees being loaded onto yellow school buses for the trip to the wars in southeast Asia. Gale and I were married in April 1969 and are looking forward to our 50th anniversary. We did not have any children.

Following a period of various occupations in sundry places, I entered the training program at Kidder, Peabody & Co. in 1976. Gainfully employed as a salesman, of municipal bonds, primarily, I remained with Kidder in northeast Massachusetts until I joined A.G. Edwards in 1991. Retiring from the investment brokerage business in 2003, we relocated to Florida in 2011. Thus the “profane” side of life.

As to the “sacred” side: attending Roman Catholic schools as a child, I distinctly recall the day in second grade when we were taught the word “Eternal”: “That which always was, always will be and always remains the same.” The idea of always impressed me and a fascination with the “Eternal” has remained with me ever since.

I took the introductory Religious Studies course at Yale, and read Aldous Huxley’s The Perennial Philosophy, and many other books. Clearly the experience of the Eternal is the same to all human beings at all times and in all places, only differing in expression. Gale and I learned Transcendental Meditation in 1971, thanks to which it becomes clear, over time, that the Eternal is not something to be sought or “experienced” by a separate, individual, mortal human, but is rather That which comprises everything, including the experiencer. The distinction between the seeker and the sought is seen to be a kind of optical illusion. This “seeing” seldom happens all at once, but develops over time, like the maturation of a fine wine, and is very much a work in progress for us. Decades of daily meditation, study of the world’s scriptures and the writings of spiritual adepts, confirm the seeing that the Eternal Life which we are is the same as the Eternal Life that abides in Everything that is. As Teilhard de Chardin wrote, “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Best wishes to all!