John’s Sunday Blog

The Mirages

What is a mirage? It’s a reflection that reveals, like a mirror, a refracting of light. But the refraction may be misconstrued as something other than what it is.

This brings to mind the activity of the mind. Our memories are refractions of light from our experiences. In yoga we look at the different parts of the mind to make more sense of it and to bring a balance to the major swings that occur in the mind. The model is composed of three parts:

Intellect - chooses, discerns, like a knife it cuts this from that, ability to differentiate

Sensory - 5 senses, instincts and emotions, likes and dislikes, more animalistic side of self

Ego or “I” - concept of me, my and mine, of doer-ship. Identifies with stories it tells itself. Depends on agreement from others as well.

Now one might say, what is this mental soup of parts?There is only one me, isn’t there? Yes and no. Who are you when you’re with your parents? A son or daughter? Who are you when you’re with your betrothed? A husband or wife? With kids? Now you’re a parent. That’s a lot to own, and can be problematic when driving us internally. Making things appear worse of better, when it’s just mind chattering to itself about it’s reflections and habitually trying to scheme its next move.

So the ego seems to be the problem here. It relies fully on memory and projection to live. This means it is a type of mirage taking up mental real estate with thoughts about itself. This is when we use the tool of the intellect. How to use it? We take the intellect out of the slippery, phantom like world of the ego and its thoughts. Then we point it to facts and logic. Example: I let myself go by being inactive and overindulging in food. We look at this with the calculator of the intellect and the answer is move, and curtail the foods. We do not listen to the mind’s excuses and judgments. How much time have we spent uselessly picking at our image of ourselves with the intellect? It does not work.

SAMENESS

In yoga we point the intellect towards what is. And what would that be? As we look away from reflections of memory we see that life is basically Knowledge & Action. This statement of fact cannot be refuted and is simple and to the point. Is this different for everyone? No. Remember, the ego looks at the difference. How about emotions? Does anyone have a different happy, sad, angry, jealousy, hatred and wonder struck than you? The degrees and situations of these emotions may differ around the emotional makeup of each individual, but the emotions themselves are hardwired. Sameness is throughout. The most dominating sameness being base awareness. Common in all life from plants to bugs, reptiles and birds, mammals and humans. The equipment may differ, as well as the mental lens, but awareness is first. Knowledge of this sameness can lesson isolated feelings. Because knowledge is factual; feelings, not so much. This type of knowledge is the essence of Karma yoga, helping one to look at one’s own stuff with a dispassionate eye.

DOER-SHIP

This pesky notion can cause a lot of pain as we well know from our upbringing. “Look what you’ve done!” Or, “Why did you do that?!, While we were children was the start of it. So, we take our intellectual power and point it too what have I done. Did you create this world? Please say no.. haha. Did you pick your name, culture, body type, sex, etc. No, you had nothing to do with it. Do you digest your food, beat your heart, have hunger, and all the other multiple things involved in living? Did you pick the three states of being you have to do everyday (waking-dreaming-sleep)? When we get worked up about things it’s always good to remember the bigger picture. An average 100 year old will have slept 34 years of their life away. Would we choose to spend 34 years unconscious, dreaming, or dead to the world? If contemplating this doer-ship deeply it takes the responsibility off and we can relax a bit. Especially when we find we did not even make our personality. All this just began one fine day when you appeared and we can spend a lot of time trying not to disappear when we have no choice in that either, it will come. This is not to say you can do anything you want and be nihilistic, but reduces the amount of control one thinks one has over life. Accept yourself, warts and all. You didn’t do you. Thinking you are in control and can fix life the way you want it is frustrating to oneself and causes harm to others. Isn’t it odd that dropping old patterns can cause healing or clarity, with no extra doing involved?

As we can see from inference, where there’s smoke, there’s fire. The totality of life has nothing to do with what we want. But, obviously it wanted us, cause here we are!