I live on one of the great European rivers. It is, indeed, a blessing to live within five minutes’ walk of the flowing torrent, one of the main arteries of our beautiful continent. At high water, the barges can even be seen from my desk here where I write, moving back and forth on their respective journeys.
There is temptation to fall for the illusion that it is the same river each day. It is not. Yesterday’s waters are now well on their way to the ocean and today’s were deeper south yesterday; in the mountains, close to the heart of the continent one week ago, even. Having lived 400 miles south-east of here for many years, I am very familiar with many of the rivers which I know have drained into the Rhein upstream and are now included in the waters flowing by here each day; the Rednitz, Pegnitz, Regnitz, Zenn, Wiesent, Main, and many more. That is a wonderful notion. I sometimes watch in silence as the great spate passes by, enthralled and invigorated by the power of Mother Nature and the connectedness of everything.
`You never step into the same river twice´, goes an old saying. How true! Yet, through laziness of habit, the illusion of stasis keeps reasserting itself. Another of my illusions is the product of the fact that my brain somehow construes that `all rivers are straight´. This leads to much mirth and wonder on my part here in the Middle Rhein Valley where the river meanders in great majestic, sweeping bends. My home, for example, is surrounded by water on three sides.
This morning’s reading by Emmet Fox* resonated deeply with me. In it he begins to describe the great temptations on the human condition, using a passage of scripture that describes the things to be found around the Temple Of Solomon (I Kings: 10 – 22). The first and foremost is gold, which represents the temptation of personal power. He writes: `It stands for the desire for personal power over other people, the desire to regulate their lives to make them toe the line – our line naturally – and even to make use of them. Many people on the spiritual path have given way to this temptation. They must dominate other peoples’ souls. They tell themselves that it is done for the good of the people, of course, but it is really a craving for personal power and glorification. It is not an ignoble sin like that connected with the silver (greed) but for that very reason it is far more dangerous, far-reaching and enduring.´
Bingo! I recognize this behavior in myself. How often I have thought to myself, `if only he or she would be different in this or that respect, then we would all be happy.´ In this state, I am no longer interacting with the people themselves, as they breathe and flow from moment to moment, but with my image of them. Let’s call this spiritual hyperopia, or long-sightedness. How can I see you if I am looking past your ever-emerging reality, to my fixed idea of how you are or how you should be? How can I set aside this terrible illusionary habit in order to experience you with an open mind, see you with clear eyes, hear you with cleansed ears, and feel you with a vibrant heart?
As always, the first step is to recognize the problem, without beating myself up for the fact that it is there. This sets me on the course of a solution rather than transfixing my attention onto the problem. Then, in contrast to Fox’s contention that it is a `craving for personal power and glorification´, I recognize in me that it is a `craving for personal power and protection, or indeed, for protection´. For, in my case, when I need to dominate others it is because I feel threatened; I do so in order to feel protected. I may not realize the fact that I am threatened at the moment, yet my response is the ever-ready response I developed as a young boy who did indeed sometimes feel threatened and who had far fewer resources then than my adult self has today.
Despite my wishes, these old patterns, the default program of my operating system, re-emerge again and again, even after I have grasped the dynamics with my cognitive faculties. Self-knowledge alone is insufficient to bring about the transformation or indeed the transmutation required for the metamorphosis of liberation. I am having a conversation with a loved one who morphs (in my mind) into an enemy in a split second. How can this happen? Even worse, I remain blind to the loved one and plow on against the `enemy´, using every resource from the toolbox of ego; domination, intimidation, severity, haughtiness, arrogance – the list is long and could probably be extended.
In such situations, I can now usually sense, deep down, that I am headed for lose/lose territory. A key to setting my weapons aside is to focus on my breathing. On remembering to breathe consciously I can move ever so gingerly out of the paroxysm of feeling threatened in order to observe myself and my surroundings. I am with a loved one, not an enemy. I may feel threatened, regardless of the facts, and I have long since learned to look after myself. The other may be in need of a kind ear or a shoulder to lean on and it is not beyond me to provide these. I feel my body relax, the release of tension in my back and shoulders is palpable. Like the awakening from a nightmare, I look around, somewhat confused, and realize that I am safe, just as I am. It was all an illusion, rooted in experiences that were etched into my psyche many decades ago, always waiting in the wings for a chance to replay the old story. David Richo refers beautifully to `the wake of a ship which has long since passed…´
Every experience of the truth is a further step towards liberation. Some of us have been privileged to avail of trauma therapy techniques such as EMDR and Somatic Experiencing to `re-program our default scripts. Neuroscience is catching up on delivering the academic proofs as to why these techniques work. Those who have benefitted from such methods require no further proof than that which we have experienced. Yet it remains a characteristic of the human condition that circumstances will repeatedly arise `inviting us to regress´ to the helpless, overwhelmed child we once were. In such situations this version of the Serenity Prayer which recently came my way has proved useful: `Great Spirit, grant me the serenity to accept the people I cannot change, the courage to change the person I can, and the wisdom to know that that person is me.´ The question of whether or not the transmutation of the old patterns will ever be achieved is rendered insubstantial on recognizing that the process unfolds in the spirit of `progress, not perfection.
Towards the end of his meditation, Fox writes that; `The thing that gold symbolizes when rightly understood is the omnipresence of God.´ This is the step that follows on from the awakening to my breathing. It is the renewed realization of the `Presence of the Great Spirit´ in each new moment, no matter how often I have lost sight of it before. Then I know that the perceived threat was indeed merely an illusion, that when connected to my Source, I am invulnerable. Until the next time I forget – and again remember.
* `Around The Year With Emmet Fox´
