Wednesday, June 6, 2012

Reality Bytes


This morning’s meditation session led me down the path of pondering the idea of being dedicated to reality. Dedication to reality is a concept put into my little impressionable head last night before bed as I was perusing M. Scott Peck’s famous book “The Road Less Traveled”, which I have read and re-read a number of times over the past few years. This 1970s tome postulates that growth and learning from all of life’s ups and downs can only occur if we are disciplined. The four dimensions of discipline, Peck says, are  (1) delayed gratification (going through the crap before the good stuff),  (2) acceptance of responsibility (rather than being the victim all the time), (3) dedication to reality and (4) balancing (balancing discipline with flexibility).

My mind began to wander during the meditation to some very precise memories of some of the “encounters” I had with my former-partner. Without going into too much detail, all I will say is that if I acted the way he sometimes did towards me during some of the challenging moments I too would not like myself very much. This is not to say that I do not acknowledge some of my responses to him as childish and, in retrospect, could have been done better.  And in the midst of remembering these moments between us, I had to laugh because I had been so blinded by the desire for this relationship to work that I hadn’t acknowledged how awfully horrible we could treat each other sometimes. Then, there was a sense of peace.

I had to ask myself then, why would I have tried to hide these painful truths about our relationship from myself and from others? Embarrassment that he or me or both of us had behaved so badly to each other who we claimed to love so deeply? Fear that it might actually be true that he and I could not work even though we believed each other to be “soulmates”? Fear that Elizabeth Gilbert was right in her heartbreak manifesto “Eat Pray Love” that it is actually too painful to be with your soulmate as they are a mirror off of which all your deepest, darkest flaws are reflected back onto you in a dazzling display of neediness, desperation, childishness, possessiveness, etc?  The painful truth is that, without some psychotherapy undertaken by both of us (but mostly by him, of course), we as a couple would have been more miserable than not. But this truth is painful and there is a massive aversion to showing pain or feeling pain in our society. We want everyone to believe at all times that “I’m good”. So when we aren’t actually “good” we shove it all deep down and we lie to those who care most for us and we lie to ourselves. These lies we tell ourselves about our various situations lead only to suffering.

In yoga there is also a focus on being dedicated to reality. As a general rule, human beings perceive the world through a thick fog of incorrect perceptions (called avidya) and these incorrect perceptions manifest in daily life in four ways: ego (asmita), desire (ragas), rejection of negative or unknown things (dvesa) and, lastly, the mother of all manifestations of incorrect perceptions, fear (abhinivesa). It is said that it is not so much the presence of the thick fog of incorrect perception that we notice but it is when the fog suddenly clears, you perceive something for what it really is without judgment or attachment and you peace washes over you. Perhaps this is also what is often termed an “aha” moment. Yogic principles teach that all things are real all the time, even our incorrect perceptions are real. However, yogic principles also stress the importance of being open to dynamic and fluid realities, like perceptions; how we saw something today does not mean we have to see it that way tomorrow or even in ten minutes… we are not bound to our maps of reality in any given moment.

For me today, this acknowledgement of reality helped me feel accepting, peaceful and to feel a few moments of freedom. But if I’ve learnt anything from yoga, meditation, love and, well, life in general, it is that at any moment when the ocean is calm and clear and safe and the sky is blue, there is always the possibility for inclement weather... this is our human-ness. This is why it is so important to relish in the moments of stillness.

1 comment:

  1. nice life story sharing.... i admire you (jeffrylatiff@yahoo.com)

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