By Alliance President Terry Gips
When it comes to peace and ending our uncivil wars, there are few people that walk the talk and serve as true models of possibility. Cal Appleby was one of them. I feel blessed to have been his friend and one of the massive number of people who were deeply affected by his teachings and way of being.
Amidst the polarization and division we are all experiencing, Cal’s teachings stand as a bright beacon to illuminate our way forward. I’ll conclude with six of his transformative insights, but I feel it’s important to first grasp his life’s purpose, actual impact, eccentric evolution and a few colorful stories of our times together.
A Life Purpose and Legacy
“My life’s purpose has been to work with people who may be marginalized by the rest of society,” Cal said. He practiced selfless action and helped many others overcome challenges that he himself also faced, for which he won the 2013 Access Press Charlie Smith Award.
Cal served humbly yet powerfully to leave a legacy that lives on through addiction treatment centers, nursing homes, the Beverly White Foundation’s youth programs, disability services at Augsburg University and the U of MN, and even five MN Correctional Facilities.
Cal’s Eccentric Evolution to Be a Transformative Force
Cal was born on Christmas Day, 1933 in Conneaut, OH and passed away June 29, 2021 at the age of 87. His father, Judge Calvin Appleby II, was Methodist and his mother believed in Christian Science, which influenced Appleby as he developed his own new age beliefs later in life, according to his obituary.
After graduating from Ohio State University, Cal moved to the Twin Cities to attend graduate school at the U of MN with the goal of becoming a psychology or sociology professor. In the Fall of 1969 he began teaching at Augsburg College. He drew on his own recovery from alcohol addiction through yoga and meditation and helped many others do the same thing. He also taught at the U of MN, according to one article.
Cal became the faithful, fun and spiritual 37-year life partner of my long-time friend and former Alliance for Sustainability Board Chair Laurie Savran. She joked that even as a child, Cal was always seen as being smart, but a little different, with a propensity to space out.
Laurie said some of his classmates teased him that he could hypnotize goldfish. “He was always off in another world, sort of like meditative, even before he heard about meditation,” Laurie said.
Cal was devoted to New Thought philosophy and embraced practices from hypnotism to yoga and meditation. He was known for doing yoga poses everywhere while wearing shirts with spiritual sayings and tie-dye.
Cal was an avid lifelong learner, going to India multiple times to visit spiritual sites and study Buddhism. He was also an active student of Judaism and Kabbalah and a fellow Torah Study participant with Laurie and me. He also studied and embraced all the world’s other religions, from Native American to Sufi.
Laurie always laughs about how she met Cal when he was literally living in a closet with about 1,000 books to save money. He loved science, movies and music and was able to recite poems by Rumi and William Butler Yeats.
Cal Never Gave Up on Others
“He was so good at working with the ones that everybody else gave up on,” said Irene Whitney Center Director Betty Triliegi, where Cal was a chemical dependency counselor. “Cal never gave up on anybody.”
He was also an advocate for people with disabilities and a pioneer in disability awareness at Augsburg. He led disability awareness classes and groups at Augsburg and helped push the school to be wheelchair-accessible.
Another program he brought to Augsburg U was taking volunteers to prisons to teach inmates about meditation and yoga, which earned him the Virginia McKnight Binger Award in human services. “He saw divinity in every person,” Laurie said.
Two Unique Cal Stories
Cal’s 2021 funeral drew leaders from the rich diversity of communities that all shared deeply emotional stories about Cal’s impact on them. I shared two stories:
Cal and Laurie got into Laughter Yoga and offered to lead it at my annual birth day celebration. They got an entire room to laugh our bellies and heads off. It was so much fun and changed our chemistry and deepened our connection.
Second, on various Shabbats I visited Cal while he was rehabilitating at Walker Methodist from a serious stroke. Other friends soon came. As always, he was communing with other realms and felt it was important for us to all come together.
He said he wanted us to come into his room and asked us to create a circle on the floor, transforming his spare room into a warm, welcoming space and meditation center. We had a beautiful, moving and connecting experience sharing from our hearts and spirits. We were all uplifted and felt a little of the amazing and wondrous world he was living in.
Cal’s Profound Wisdom for Everyone
Cal shared his highly-evolved way of seeing all people when he received the 2013 Access Press Charlie Smith Award:
“I have come to see the great gifts, the basic goodness,
and estimable qualities and potential all human beings possess.
When we understand a person deeply enough,
especially people who are difficult in our lives,
when we really listen, we learn to love and revere them.
And if we just start with great love for everyone,
we will understand them to their very core.
Whatever happens to us in our lives can be a great teaching
when we step away from dualistic ways of seeing reality.
Difficult people and situations may become our greatest spiritual teachers.”
Six Transformative Teachings from Cal
Cal and I had many deep discussions about meditation, transformation and changing the world. He also shared many pieces of profound writing, often on the scale of Rumi and Hafiz. After one of those incredible conversations he shared this amazing piece he wrote called The Infinite Master Game: Transformative Practice.
While the title may be somewhat confounding, I believe it reflects Cal’s commitment to mastering the huge challenge of being in relationship with all people.
I hope his words resonate with you and illuminate the gift of his spirit, which I feel is so extraordinary and needed today.
The Infinite Master Game Transformative Practice
By Cal Appleby
- For every person you meet, without exception, allow every thought, word and action be for that person’s highest welfare, happiness and awakening. Notice without judgment when you fall short of this.
- With boundless appreciation, see each person you meet as a bodhisattva guiding you toward awakening and conscious evolution. A bodhisattva is an awakening being committed to other’s awakening. Ultimately, there is no separate being who awakens, and no separate others.
- Consider your every virtuous thought, word and deed as a possible tipping point toward peace, love and happiness in the world, and of course, in so doing, uplifting yourself and altering your own destiny.
This is another way to actualize Gandhi’s invitation to be the change you wish to see in the world. You may be the hundredth monkey or the tipping point. It’s all up to you. - Contemplate the reality that all happiness comes from cherishing others as much or more than yourself. All misery comes from concern for one’s self alone.
- Commit yourself to see and to encourage everyone, without exception, to express their core health, love, wisdom, goodness, beauty and great gifts for the world. Our hearts open when we deeply listen to and understand another person, and to love another is to understand them beyond all concepts.
- Live every moment as if it might be your last, and some day it will be. As we come to the end of our life, our true peace will come from knowing that we loved, served, remembered our source, and gave the gift we came here to give. Before that time, love and laugh lots!