Читать книгу The Yoga of Relationships - Yogi Amrit Desai - Страница 9

Chapter 1

The Urge to Merge

Love is the elixir of life, the nectar that nurtures every level of our body and being. Our inborn, evolutionary urge to merge compels us to search for love and the promise of completion it brings. We seek love in its myriad forms and in every expression of life, craving the experience of ecstatic union, where the walls that separate us from others dissolve into oneness.

With our first breath in, we arrive in this life pure and without attachments, yet it is an existence devoid of consciousness. As infants, we live purely in the moment, delighting in our own toes and giggling at whoever shows us affection. In these early years, our demands are purely biological. When we are hungry, we cry and are fed. When we are wet, we get irritable and our clothes are changed. When we are tired, we get restless and are tucked into bed. At this stage, closeness to our mother is not personal affection, but an instinctual bonding for the fulfillment of basic needs and the preservation of life.

It does not take long for the innocence of childhood to wear off. In ages past, it was said that a child was with God for the first seven years. Today, with the influence of mass media messages, it is closer to two or three years. By this age, the individual personality is already developing. The demands are no longer purely biological; they come with conditions because the sense of “I” and “mine” are very strong natural inclinations in children. Any parent of a toddler knows how conniving they can be. Parental and societal responses to experimental behaviors have a lifelong effect both on the individual and everyone around them. This is the beginning of the self-image we show to the world. Our self-image, or ego, is conditioned over time by our parents, society and culture.

We think of the self-image as ourselves. At this age, we are too naive to realize the falsity of this impression. We have no ability to separate the truth from fiction. The ego has needs; it makes demands. And when needs are not met, it leads to frustration, anger and resentment. We believe we are looking for love, but it is not love we are seeking. It is our ego trying to fill its insatiable void. It is at this juncture that the word love gets its bad name. The ego’s hunger for more and more can never be satisfied, leaving us feeling confused and miserable. If we never reach the realization that we are not only individuals, but simultaneously part of the whole, we develop self-centered behaviors. This is natural and happens to all of us in varying degrees.

In short, our self-image creates the world we live in. We exist in a fantasy world, not the real world. Distorted by our perceptions, our happiness morphs into sadness, loving becomes revenge, and satisfaction turns into expectations. With duality comes unconscious separation. This sense of the false self develops separateness from others as it acquires definitions, concepts, memories and expectations of how life should be. Our immature emotions become a roller coaster of ups and downs, continually counteracted by their polar opposites.

This is a difficult trap and sometimes it feels as if we will never escape the cycle of disappointments. We repeat the same mistakes. We get stuck in our own patterns of self-destruction. But life is a perpetual therapeutic irritation. It is a school for learning our lessons over and over again until we get it right. The merry-go-round of life always gives us another chance to grab the brass ring.

Grown-up Children

The expectations of the ego follow us into adulthood. Adults have the same “I” and “mine” as children, solidified over the years through acquired associations from a collection of personal events, experiences, prejudices and false perceptions.

The “I” is needed to sustain the body. There is nothing wrong with it, but it is vastly misunderstood and overrated in terms of reliability. The mind is an extension of the body. The body would be incapable of exploring its human potential without the facility of the mind. All experiences of pleasure and pain, comfort and discomfort, are registered in the mind. This is nature’s device. The mind can be our worst enemy or our closest friend. It is our choice to use the body and the mind as tools to explore both our human and spiritual potential. As we listen to the messages of the body, we must discern what it is really telling us, all the while remembering that the mind has a mind of its own. It is not beneath the mind to lie to us. In fact, it lies more often that not. The body–if we listen closely–never lies.

From our early pre-programmed conditioning, we unknowingly create an inner split. The “I” that originally focused primarily on nurturance goes beyond that role and becomes deceptive. As we grow into adults, it uses the body and itself as objects of manipulation for pleasure-seeking and pain-avoidance. Pleasure nourishes; but pleasure-seeking malnourishes. Pleasure-seeking behavior leads to indulgence in attention-getting through work, entertainment, food and sex. Protecting ourselves from pain builds the walls of separation higher and higher, preventing us from seeing what we need to see as evolving spiritual beings.

There is no going back. Once we grow up, we can never return to childhood and get the same joy playing with old toys. Once the light of consciousness reveals that this world and all its promises are just toys of the ego, we can never go back.

Moving Beyond the Past

Often, we unwittingly revive painful past experiences, bringing them into the present. Until we are conscious about them, we continually invite suffering into our lives, placing blame on the one who hurt us, both in the past and in the present. Essentially we are allowing that person to hurt us again and again in the form of another. We are trapped in pain that happened years ago. It is as sharp as if it happened yesterday. A new relationship—someone who invariably reminds us of the person from the past—is likely to reopen old wounds. There is no advancement or awareness until we learn to consciously let go of the past with all its blame and shame.

During my seminars, I teach through interaction during question and answers at the end of my discourse. Although it is a one-on-one interchange, the lessons of one person are applicable for all. On this topic of childhood trauma, a young woman once explained to me that she thought she had it all figured out:

Woman: I decided a long time ago that I would never be dependent on anyone. I have been diligent about not allowing another person to be in a position where they could have control over me. I did not know where this attitude came from. It was not until recently that I realized through an inner child experience that somehow my father had created that part of my personality.

Yogi Desai: I would suggest that perhaps you alter your language. Instead of saying “My father created it,” why not say, “It happened in reference to my father.” That is closer to reality. Remember that nobody creates anything for you, independently of you, or in spite of you. Remember that.

Woman: Okay, I see. Then to say it correctly, “I realized I’m the way I am because I was hurt by my father.

Yogi Desai: It would really be more correct to say, “Because I myself created this pain in reference to the situation with my father.” As an innocent child, you were part of the situation. Even if there was abuse then, you are an adult now and have the power to release that hold. Understand that you did not come to this life empty-handed. You came with the baggage of unfinished karma from your past. How you reacted to your father was a continuation of your past karma. Your father may have treated your sister or brother the same way you were, but all three of you came out of it differently. A family lives in the same house, but each child has a totally unique experience with the parents. Why? Because we all are working out our own karma.

Woman: I was so open as a child, but he repeatedly mistreated me with cruel remarks, so I shut down. At some age, I determined that I was not going to let him hurt me ever again.

Yogi Desai: It was not only as an innocent child that you felt hurt. You are still hurting. You believe people are still mistreating and criticizing you. So, do not think that you were hurt because you were innocent. You are now very grown-up and intelligent, and still, you are in pain. Think about it.

Woman: In reaction to him, I eventually developed a shell around me. I decided I would not give anybody the power to hurt me like he did.

Yogi Desai: How did you overcome that?

Woman: I haven’t yet.

Yogi Desai: But you have the facility to recognize what is happening inside you and that the pain is just as real. Seeing that is progress. The key to moving beyond it is to let go of the blame. Blame is saying, “He did this to me.” And every time you say that, the unspoken completion of that statement is, “I cannot do anything about it.”

Until you remove the blame, you cannot empower yourself to go beyond it. Your father was incidental. He happened to be your father. Unfortunately, he was not enlightened. How many of us had enlightened parents? What can we do about that? Nothing, but there is something we can do for ourselves.

You are also a parent. You are not enlightened either. You are just an ordinary human being. So were your father and mother. But you have the facility to recognize that fact and change yourself.

I’m sure Jesus had some trouble with Joseph and Mary. Joseph advised his son, “Go out and be a carpenter.” And Mary, being a good mother, would definitely have liked Jesus to marry a nice Jewish girl. But none of these good intentions occurred. Instead Jesus ran away, leaving behind disappointed parents, who lamented: Where did we go wrong? Just as parents lament today. And look what he created for himself. Nothing ever happens according to what we want, but that does not mean it can be solved by blame. Despite his suffering and humiliation, Jesus never blamed anyone. His behavior led to ultimate freedom and victory.

Do not believe that it was only because your father was wrong that you made a decision to resist the world. You have not stopped making that decision. It just goes on.

Woman: I can see that now.

Yogi Desai: Until we wake up, we live in the same unconsciousness we lived in as children. We put so much blame on our parents, and yet we repeat the same thing our parents did to us. We do not want to take responsibility. If we blame our parents, then we do not have to do the work of healing ourselves. We have assigned it to them. Many psychology books firmly lay blame on parents. Everybody who wants to blame their parents buys those books and buys into that idea. It is a good investment unless you want to evolve.

Blame does not go away unless we are willing to take on the real work. Very few people are willing to do that. They will buy a book, but not take on the work of observing of how their minds are interpreting a situation, and how they are continuing to assign blame. The opening will happen if you first change your language, which will, by and by, change your perspective. Do you see how quickly the old ways of speaking come back? “My father hurt me. He did it, and I was hurt.” You may have done that same thing to some of your loved ones, but you justify your actions by continuing to hold your father responsible.

Woman: As a result of that incident and things that happened after that, I reinforced my basic concept. It carried on into adulthood: “There it is again. People are not dependable. I cannot depend on anybody. I am not going to open up.” All that went on unconsciously. The pattern repeated itself.

Yogi Desai: As soon as we become conscious enough to see how we replay a life event, we are also ready to drop it. You are conscious enough to recognize what you are doing, so how about being conscious enough to drop it?

Woman: You cannot drop it until you know what to drop.

Yogi Desai: It is simply the blame you must drop. No explanations or rationalizations are required to achieve this. What holds you back is not that your parents did something to you, but the way you took it and are still taking it. The reason we react to a certain event is because of our personal unfinished karma. Whatever our issues, we are back here in life to work them out.

When you have not finished a job before you fall asleep, what do you do when you wake up? You pick up where you left off. Death is a slightly longer sleep. When you wake up, you continue with what was unfinished. The only difference is that you forget what it was that was unfinished.

Drop the idea that your father was to blame for your pain. You interpreted it that way and there is nothing wrong with that. So do not now blame yourself. Just be clear. If you enter into self-rejection every time the problem comes up, then after a while you stop seeing clearly. Self-rejection shuts down self-discovery. You keep seeking the solution somewhere else.

Woman: I will work on that.

Yogi Desai: A mind that is colored by guilt, fear and blame cannot figure it out. A mind afflicted by charged emotions and analysis only justifies. Justification is not figuring it out. You do not have to solve your problem logically or psychologically. The most direct route is to trust in your Higher Consciousness. Every time such an issue comes up, make a conscious decision to let go of blame or guilt. When you do that, you do not continue to feed the problem, so it simply dies of starvation. All that is needed is for you to give it up. The simplest effort can be the hardest thing to do. But it is the only way—the only way.

Humans vs. Animals

Obsessed with experiencing all pleasure and no pain, humans set themselves apart from the animal kingdom but end up distancing themselves from the Divine. We have an animal body, a human mind and a divine potential. Animal consciousness is limited to physical survival. They live their whole lives with Fight or Flight reactions to bodily threats. They do not possess the free will to do otherwise.

Our identity is based first upon safety and survival, and is guarded with the same instinctive Fight or Flight response that happens with a real threat to our existence. We are perpetually on “high alert” with adrenaline flowing and brain chemicals pouring into every cell to sustain the self-image. This state becomes the state of mind we live in. Living in a perpetual high-stress situation ultimately damages our health, causing all manner of illnesses and disease. It is also responsible for flawed thinking and poor decision-making about relationships.

The human consciousness of “I” extends beyond the body into the realm of “who I am.” The sense we develop as “who I am” is a vast, definable nebula of changing self-concepts, belief systems, personal perspectives, attitudes, opinions, biases, likes and dislikes, attractions and repulsions. The self-destructive ego-mind uses its negative influence to draw the body away from its natural protection. The function of our animal instincts is suppressed, sacrificed in the pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain. The self-image sets up an internal frame of reference, telling us who we are, how far we have traveled and where we are going. It decides what is right, what is wrong, what we fear, what we love, what we should ignore and what we should cling to. Whatever drive is dominant in our personality at any given time determines our perceptions, choices, logic, reason and even memory, which is distorted at best. It cannot be trusted, yet we blindly follow it every step of the way.

But we do have a choice to get out of the trap of our own delusions. Moving beyond the Fight or Flight response is what separates us from animals. As humans, we are invited to a third choice, but few of us take advantage of this unique privilege. The third choice is “witness consciousness.” Often it is characterized as Wu Wei in Taoist philosophy. It is way of disassociating our personal reaction and observing an interaction from a third person perspective.

I, as an individual, have the choice as to what I eat and how much, and whether it is for pleasure or for nurturance. How often I have sex, overwork at the office, or expend effort to gain the acceptance of others are choices animals do not have.

All species of animals have group choices in terms of food, sex, self-preservation, means of survival and use of environmental resources. Birds build nests, even though each type has its own habits in nesting, in a tree or in a marsh. Lions in the wild live differently from cows on a farm. No two lions, however, will select a different kind of accommodation to show off, as if to say, “Look how special my den is. I am more prosperous than you.” During mating season, males may battle to the death, but this is not ego. It is their genetic instinct for the procreation of their species, not because their ego will be stoked by being seen with the most attractive female in the pack. Animals have no individual ego-mind that needs to be better than the other. They are tied together as a group soul.

Each human, with its unique soul, acts as an individual, with the freedom to make its own choices. With this freedom comes the responsibility of the choices we make. If our choices only serve to reinforce the self-image, our karma ledger becomes filled with debits against our spiritual growth. As we grow, everything around us changes, but the memory remains fixed. Growing up doesn’t necessarily mean emotional maturity. That depends on evolving conscious self-awareness. And that takes practice, as well as understanding of the difference between who we really are and who we think we are.

Identification with the Persona

Persona, the Greek word for mask, is the face of our self-image. It is not who we really are. It is who we believe we are. It is the face we show to the world. The mask changes with each role we play, whether it is daughter or son, sister or brother, mother or father, friend, citizen, businessperson or lover. On the stage of life, we change the mask with every relationship.

The exhausting job of continually changing masks keeps us in a stupor, preventing us from functioning at our maximum potential. Instead, we continue to rely on our underlying self-image, an adopted philosophical structure based on our beliefs, opinions, attachments and fears. We identify so closely with these concepts that we become them. They reinforce our gluttony for more luxury, success or money—none of which we really want to experience directly, but for the delight in how others perceive our accomplishments. The more we get, the more we need to keep us satisfied. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Identification becomes so enmeshed in our self-image that we will do nearly anything to maintain it. In its extreme, it leads to religious wars, assaults and white-collar crimes. At the very least, self-righteous behavior can spell our personal ruin.

We think we are alone as individuals, but there is actually a whole crowd of inner voices giving us directions… and all of them we call “me.” For example, as “I” develops a complete identity, our entire experience of life originates from this fantasized self. If I am successful in convincing others of who I think I am, I also buy into what my self-image is selling. As I project this false identity, all my relationships are directed by a fictitious self. Ultimately, who can love a false person? This is why relationships fail, but without understanding of how we got ourselves into this predicament, we are left wondering what went wrong, who did what to whom, and who is at fault. Until we learn from these failures, we are doomed to strained relationships in our original family, extended family, love life and career.

Without awareness of the cause, we set ourselves up to repeat the same behavior in our next relationship, and the next and the next. We continue doing the same thing expecting different results. Does any of this sound familiar? Is this how you have been living your life?

You are the creator.

What you believe, you create.

What you create, you become.