About Mind
I have responded to a comment on my “bankruptcy” story few days ago. Here is what I said:
“Thank you, I believe however that my friend can see another way of creating her life, one that is not encompassed by the usual “home and a job” model. There might be a whole new way of being, available now, since the old way is crumbling.”
As I thought about my response it struck me as nice, gentle, pretty vague and incredibly unhelpful. I’ve been thinking to myself for the past few days: “if you have to talk you might as well say something useful, you might just say what you mean!”
Here is what I mean by “more than one way of being”: our reality, human reality, at this time, is organized pretty much only and completely from mind’s point of view. We have societies, rules, structures, that are designed to keep us safe, to help us survive.
Mind is a separation, it is a defensive orientation to reality. Mind splits the world into “me” and “not me”, and everything that is not me is potentially threatening and dangerous. I have to defend myself. I have to defend myself from life, I have to survive my life.
In my experience the need to survive is what society is created in response to. Society gives tools, guidelines and rules which, when obeyed, will keep one safe and protected. It tells us what to get and how: education, job, salary, house. It promises that if we follow the rules of the system the system will take care of us.
The system is crashing now, it is not taking care of anybody anymore, it doesn’t offer safety and protection. It is a very painful and very scary experience and yet there is a great opening here, there is an opportunity for a realization that, even though the system collapses, we are still here.
My friend has lost her house – and she’s still here. She filed bankruptcy – and she’s still here. She is still alive, she is still being in the world, she is still doing what she wants to do in life. Without the structures that were supposed to keep her safe she is still here, doing well, being herself.
She is who she is, even without the house. She is who she is without the credit. She didn’t collapse, die, disappear.
I believe that the economy’s collapse, however terribly painful and scary, opens a space for something new to arise. It opens a space for the realization that the system might not have been needed in the first place, that there might be nothing to be afraid of, that life is not a scary, terrible thing that only an open credit can protect us from.
Because there is no credit now and yet we are still here.
When I look beyond mind, beyond the split and separation, beyond the fear, life appears to be a wonderful adventure. It is not a chance for me to keep safe and survive, it is a chance to experience. To experience myself, to experience the world as myself, to experience others as myself.
Only when I collapse and forget who I am, only when I start believing that I am my mind, only when I start believing my fears, do I need protection, systems, structures. When I am who I am, as who I am, there is nothing that’s needed. There is no fear, there is no danger.
When there is no danger there is no need for a system designed to defend. When there is no danger there is space for experience and expression. When there is no need to strive for protection there is a space to be and enjoy. When there are no rules for how to live life, there is an ultimate freedom to be oneself in whatever shape or form we choose.
I watched “Anne of the Thousand Days” yesterday, the story of Anne Boleyn and Henry VIII. I actually listened to it more than watched it, I was preparing dinner, TV was on at the other end of the living room.
Anne just gave birth to a girl and the terrible drama resulted. I thought: this almost makes me believe in destiny. All those people locked in a terrible struggle for king’s son. All the women and men killed, betrayed, all the religious upheavals, all the wars, suffering and pain … all for the king’s son. A son that will never sit on the throne, because there is Elizabeth.
It made me think for a moment that it was a destiny of the king not to have a son, so that there would be a throne for Elizabeth. I considered it and another idea occurred to me: they did not recognize the opportunity they were presented with.
It is not a matter of faith, destiny, preordained lives, it is a matter of presence. King, queen, their courtiers, church, their subjects, everyone believed that the king has to have a son. Everybody knew that a woman can not rule. It was not an opinion, a belief, not even a truth, it was simply what’s so, it was how things are, it was reality. No one would question it, no one could even consider the possibility of questioning it. And yet there was Elizabeth.
They couldn’t recognize the opportunity and so they struggled, and suffered, and died. What would happen if they recognized it, I wondered. Reality was changing all around them. What would happen if they could recognize it, hold space for it, change with it? What would happen if they joined and supported Elizabeth in her growth, what would happen if they held space for her to become the most powerful monarch England has ever had?
If they could be present with this possibility, what would happen to them? To the king and queen, what opening, what space could they have held for their country before Elizabeth ever came to the throne?
I thought about it again today morning. I was reading news about the measures Obama is taking to deal with the economic crisis, particularly about the $500.000 cap on senior executives’ salaries. I thought about the senior executives’ salaries for some time now. Stories pop up in news all the time about the incredibly costly trash cans and private jets and I wonder: why are they doing this, what are they thinking?
Those people are not stupid, the CEOs of companies that run and, for the most part, create the economic system of this country are not idiots. They must understand the situation, they must see what happens to the economy. I don’t quite believe that they are all sociopathic, greedy monsters, so why? Why are they doing those incredible things? Why are they spending money on luxuries when their companies are falling apart?
I tried to understand, I read blogs and looked at forums, read articles and comments and I realized that it is not a question of “why”. As I read what the CEOs have to say, what their wifes have to say, what the investment bankers have to say, I realized that their reality is completely different than mine. What for me is an exuberant and lavish for them is normal. Not because they are greedy – simply because it is what’s so.
This is how it is, this is how business is done. If you want to have the “top players” work for you, you have to pay them this much, simple as that. Or they will leave and go to your competition, and you will loose. It is not an opinion, a belief, not even a truth, it is simply what’s so, it is how things are, it is reality. No one would question it, no one could even consider the possibility of questioning it. Therefore they don’t, and continue to do things the way they always did, because this is simply how things are done.
Few hundred years ago in England everybody was struggling desperately for the king’s son, even though no son was coming, now the financial world seems to strugle to keep their reality intact, even though it’s crumbling all around them.
But there was Elizabeth, there was an opportunity, an opening, a change right in front of them. They couldn’t recognize it then.
“What would happen if we could recognize it now?” I wondered today morning. If the financial executives could recognize it, if the CEOs could recognize it. Reality is changing all around them. What would happen if they could see it and, instead of being dragged into a new reality kicking and screaming, struggling and resisting, what would happen if they could hold space for it, open to it, change with it?
What would happen if we could recognize the opportunity before the king and queen are dead and the old way collapses to make space for a new one?
I am not happy – I realized suddenly last night. It occurred to me that I am not striving to remain present, to be myself, in order to be myself. I do it to not fall, to not identify with my mind, to not merge with … whatever. I do it out of fear, I do it to protect myself from being constricted, controlled, lost. I do it to “be a good girl”.
And so I opened, I became present as who I am just for the pleasure of it, for the overwhelming bliss that comes with it. It is who I am, this bliss, it is my natural state of being. Everyone’s natural state of being. There was trauma shrieking in my ears with thousand voices but, with all this noise, I was myself. I was God, beyond God. Myself.
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It took me much longer than usual to write another post. I’ve been … preoccupied… for the last two weeks, finishing a job for a client from hell. I am designing and producing a website for him, have been doing it for last 4 months. Four months is a loooooong time to create a website.
The client from hell didn’t know what he wanted, even though he thought he knew. He would never give any clear instructions. He would never tell me exactly what and how should be done. He would wait until an element was finished, to tell me that it was not what he wanted, even if, maybe, he said it was, but he didn’t mean it like this, he meant it like that.
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I read an article yesterday about a new computer game which, apparently, is quickly becoming extremely popular among French and British teenagers and children. The game is called “miss bimbo”. A player creates an avatar (a sort of a digital representation of themselves) and the object of the game is to make the avatar-bimbo as popular, as fashionable, as famous as possible. To achieve that goal players can take their bimbo shopping, give her various fancy haircuts, keep her appropriately slim using various diets, diet pills , etc., keep the bimbo young and tempting by applying appropriate plastic surgery: facelifts, breast implants, etc. To take care of the bimbo player must also find her a “sponsor” — rich boyfriend who can pay for her.
In Great Britain 200.000 girls join the game within a single month, in France within a year the game had almost a million and a half of players. Players range anywhere from 9 years old to 15 years old.
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