As someone who writes her heart out, I sometimes wonder if I may be giving an altogether incorrect impression about my life, my family and relationships, my loving partnership.
We see our lives as perfect not because they are perfect in a literal sense, but because we have swallowed them whole… and now, all perfections and imperfections reside fully within us.
My partnership is perfect because it is complete, and I have oriented myself entirely to it. My relationship with my parents is perfect because I have imbibed it whole. My relationship with my sister is perfect because I have eaten her up, fully. Indeed, none of these exist outside of me.
Meaning, there is nothing objective about any of this. It is entirely subjective, so what you see (through my writings) is what I see.
Wrote this a year ago on Facebook, and I thought I’d share it here as well.
The last couple of posts of mine have been… a little sombre, sober, sad. It is important to understand, though… they were written in a particular state of mind. And no state of mind is constant. This lockdown has also been a period of beauty, enthusiasm, loving joy, humor, even bliss. And there used to be a smidgen of guilt as well. For not contributing, for not sewing masks, for not supporting, for not donating, for not volunteering, for not being enough… in any way, in many ways.
Not that any of this is a competition. And I have never been a good competitor. I hardly ever feel invested in an end goal, a final prize… not even myself. This idea of doing something/anything as a means to become more evolved, more benevolent, more generous, more wise… doesn’t fully gel with me. I AM evolved, benevolent, generous and wise. I am also fearful, anxious, stubborn, and detached. And everything I do emerges from this unique, multi-colored space.
I have enjoyed this lockdown period immensely but I have also been rattled in strange, little ways. I have experienced dull evenings of scary, gaping emptiness, and I have savored blissfully cool, sunny mornings when my garden smiles back at me, and little seedlings happily unfurl their true leaves on the bathroom window sill. I have happily eaten every dish my creative husband has rustled up in our kitchen. I have had rough nights with dreams of chaos, restlessness. And then there is that rare morning when you wake up feeling weightless, so light and transparent, like a feather.
(I tend to believe that a LOT of how I feel is directly linked to the state of my digestion. So I attend to it as best as I can.)
My husband is a beautiful mirror, meaning he reflects what he sees without projecting. When you are a “blank canvas” type of personality, it is immensely helpful to have a partner who doesn’t splatter paint all over you. Perhaps that’s why this period of forced enclosure has not altered the quality of space in the relationship.
Contrary to what anyone (friend, partner, parent, media, president, prime minister, queen) says, our experience of life is fully and unequivocally our own, and it is an internal phenomenon. Life actually occurs on the inside, so no one can tell you what THAT is all about, and that includes the pandemic/Corona experience also.
To be in a state of wanting (not want) is so awful.
It may not even be that your friend has adorable children, unbelievably adorable pets. (And you don’t.) Or that your ex-colleague has a gorgeous home. (And you don’t.) Or that your cousin has an extraordinary garden. (And yours is struggling, a true “work in progress.”) Or that your neighbor seems to vacation in the coolest places.
No, none of those “material” goods and pleasures.
It may be that your schoolmate is so incredibly self-assured. (And you aren’t). Or that your sister is literally oozing with creativity; she seems to move from one creative project to another effortlessly, producing incredible works of art! Or that your friend is so articulate… you are in awe of his ability to string deep, profound meaning from simple words. Or maybe it’s a distant cousin who has gone through deep shit in her life, and come out smelling of roses.
Not exactly “material” goods these but oh, you wish you had all of that! Creativity, courage, self-assurance, articulative ability, clarity… and so on.
That gap between what you have and what you think they do is so deep and vast; you are never going to make it across. You feel that you will be left wanting all your life. You are never going to develop those reserves of courage and resilience that emerge only after a crisis. (And you are no Macho Man, you have little appetite for a crisis of any kind.) You know that creativity is God-given, and if you have shown no signs of it thus far, you know that it isn’t going to emerge one fine day, all of a sudden. As for self-assurance, how ON EARTH does one cultivate that?
And then, you are asked to feel gratitude, be grateful… for all that you have. Ugh. You feel like a fraud, mouthing “thanks” when all you feel is this acute sense of wanting inside.
That feeling of wanting is NOT solidified magma, or a deep, impassable gap. In fact, it can go away pretty quick. Not that you will start painting like a Georgia O’Keeffe, or write like a Zadie Smith, or develop incredible courage… None of that. In fact, you see that the disappearing of the sense of wanting has little to do with gaining any of that which you sorely desire. That wanting shows up one day, goes away the next… perhaps reappears around New Years Eve, lingers on in January, then goes away in Feb.
It comes and goes. So you can create art (or not), grow a struggling garden (or not), go skydiving (or not), learn Japanese (or not)… none of that matters. So, rest easy.
Several years ago, I was on a teacher training course. As it happens on these programs, you spend a great deal of time engaged in meditative practices, Hatha yoga, contemplation, etc. I can’t speak for others but I often found myself feeling particularly sensitive, emotional. When you begin a practice of meditation (and I am using this term in the broadest sense), you sometimes encounter experiences (mental, emotional, etc.) that can throw you off a bit… You may feel remorseful, angered, bitter, dejected, disappointed, etc. (HA, why should someone carry on with such a practice, right? Anyway, I digress.) So, it may have been that I was particularly miserable one day… I think the teacher noticed something a little off with me. He came over at the end of the session, whispered, “You cannot be like Guruji; you can only be Guruji.”
I had no idea what that meant. I remonstrated, wanting to explain myself, or wanting an explanation. He didn’t say much else, and I wondered: What was that about?
It’s 13+ years since that incident, and I think about it sometimes.
Human beings are copycats. We imitate endlessly. And so it happens that you meet someone wise and wonderful, and you want to be like them. What you see is the outer, and you begin copying. And it’s sometimes mystifying because this wise individual behaves in “unwise” ways. And because you can’t see beyond the visible, you wonder: How can such behavior be “enlightened?” Why did he do that? How can she say this? Isn’t she supposed to be kind and generous? I thought he was a wise, enlightened being.
I remember a talk by Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar where he speaks about our tendency to scrutinize the behavior of a so-called enlightened being, trying to guess their motivation. “Why did he scold them? How can he say something so hurtful? Perhaps he hasn’t overcome his own cravings and aversions,” and so on. Gurudev explained that you cannot determine what lies inside such an individual. (Perhaps, nothing?) And you certainly cannot figure it out from their vyavahAr, the outward behavior. And yet it happens that the Self sometimes sparkles through the behavior, and if you are keen, you are able to discern it.
Once we let go of our desire to “become enlightened,” (as opposed to simply being), and we drop the plan of behaving LIKE the one we love and admire, we may be able to truly see through their outer behavior and commentary and actions and responses. And then we may be able to see that there is no need to be LIKE anyone else. Indeed, you can be exactly as you are.
Instead, all we see is their outer behavior AND how our own behavior is not desirable, not “enlightened” or “wise.” And yet, we are so attached to our perceived faults! If a wise person told us, “Drop all that shit; you are free and pure today,” we’d still be doubtful, unsure. Because we feel that the ONLY way to be free and pure is to OWN all that shit. Because if we disowned these so-called faults, how would we improve?
