Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Pounding the shadows on the windows of our minds

This morning as the sun hits one of the glass doors, which is built with little squares of windows dividing it and which faces the backyard, there is a bird persistently hitting the glass with its beak. It sounds so strong that the sound is quite loud as if someone is knocking on the door. It keeps pounding the door constantly. This is the time of the day where the position of the sun allows one to see clearly one’s image reflected on the glass from outside it and blocks one from seeing inside the room. I am not the bird but I can guess quite accurately that it is seeing its own image through the glass because I have been outside of that door on this time of the day and know that it clearly reflected my image although I did not hit glass. I guess that it is hitting the glass because it sees its image reflected there and it does not like what it sees or because it interprets the image as its enemy that could be one of its own kind or of another kind. I believe birds are like and at the same time unlike us in this respect. They are like us in they would not hit so persistently on what they like. A bird unlike us would not hit its offspring so hard in such way and for such a long time as we humans do. So it stays there for hours and hours until the one soul of this house passes by, and, even so, it returns when there is no one around and it keeps pounding the door with its beak. I guess it will stop when the sun finally moves on to another position in the sky. Now try to go there and tell the bird that it is mistaken and that it should stop doing that. We don’t know the language of the birds so we are never going to be able to communicate that to it. If we go there to try to convince it, it will fly away in fear because we are bigger and stronger but when we go away, it comes back and starts hitting the window repeatedly.


I guess in a way we are like that because when we are with the ego running our minds, we hit what we don’t like but we are also different from birds because sometimes we hit what we profess to like. The ego is extremely sensitive to dualities such as good and bad, likes and dislikes, appropriate and not appropriate, right and wrong and so on. When the ego is on the go, we hit someone because we don’t like what they did or how they behaved or we hit ourselves because we don’t like what we did or how we behaved; or we hit someone because we don’t like what they said or we hit ourselves because we don’t like what we said only because we believe they were or we were wrong, inappropriate, bad or because we don’t like what happened. It does not matter if what happened is just an interpretation of our minds or if it is what really happened. Unlike the bird we keeping hitting on our weaknesses, or on our mistakes or on what we don’t like about ourselves in the same way that we hit on other people weaknesses, mistakes, or on what we don’t like about them which we find negative, ugly or terrible begin true or not. We do that sometimes for days, weeks, months or even years reminding ourselves or others of these things every time that we have an opportunity sometimes even sounding playful. We keeping doing that for as long as the ego is ruling our minds and we do it without ever stopping because the ego is insatiable. So if we don’t like our nose, we keep reminding ourselves often that we don’t like it, that it is ugly, and if we are rejected in some, we immediately connect to our ugly nose. Then, if we have the means, we even try to change it using our sophisticated medical procedures of today often invented to beautiful a dead tree, which is what our bodies really is under the ruling of the ego, and in this way to help our dreams come through and further ourselves on them. Sometimes even with the changes, we cannot forget the old nose because we think that the job was not quite as we would like it to be so that we keep hitting on ourselves. However, with the change sometimes we hit on ourselves less often until the inner satisfaction builds up again.


Another way that we are similar to that bird is that if someone tries to come and say that we are just hitting on our shadows or on the shadows of others, we will find one of the following options: Or we are going to shine away in fear and if we do shine away in fear we are going to become resentful of the good Samaritan and find ways to get back to him; or we are going to argue or probably hit him with words or physically or kill him even if this good Samaritan is a real Sage. Like they did with Socrates and Jesus two beings killed because they tried to warned people they were hitting their shadows.


When the ego is in action, it leads us to interpret everything that happens in minuscule details but in our own way and the worst of it, it is that it does not matter if our interpretation is correct or mistaken, we act on it blindly. So with our egos in action, we interpret that the good Samaritan is trying to say that we are lying or trying to disprove what we believe to be clearly real and not shadows. Very similar to the reactions that Plato preview about in the Allegory of the Cave saying that if someone manage to free himself from the shackles and leave the cave, where they have been shackled their whole lives unable to see the world of light outside, and comes back to tell everyone the good news that what they are seeing on the walls of their lives are only shadows, they will not think that it is such a good news at all. They will probably call him crazy, lunatic, unsound, if they don’t hit him verbally or physically or even kill him first for saying such heresy.

We only stop hitting on shadows when finally allows the Self, the Light, the Truth, the inner Wisdom, or any other word that we would like to use in this line of thinking, to guide our minds. Then we stop seeing shadows on the windows of our minds and we stop hurting ourselves and consequently we stop hurting others. Then we realize that the shadows on the windows are only shadows and we open the windows to see beyond the shadows, beyond the windows to the reality outside of an insane world that keeps showing us shadows. This is the beginning of wisdom through which our minds opens to a new world and we begin to experience everything around us in a more objective way and we never take shadows for reality so we stop hitting on shadows.


When we stopped seeing and hitting on shadows, it is quite certainly because we allowed the Self, the Light, the Truth, the inner wisdom, or any other word we would like to use as I said, to guide our minds. Then we begin to undo the whole ego system. This is a slow movement and takes much time and much internal work not because we necessarily need time to this but because of the fear of dissolving or transforming the ego and the uncertainties of not knowing who we are going to be after this enormous task is accomplished. This is not an easy path because the ego’s grasp upon our minds has been so strong and of unbelievable proportions.


This change when attempted by someone happens slowly for some and fast for a few others depending on the sense of inner urgency they have and on how willing they are to invest their lives following such a path. So the Wisdom, the Self, the Truth or the inner Light shines depending on the speed that our feet are moving. For most this is a slow process and when this is going on the Wisdom, the Self, the Truth or the inner Light shines only occasionally and then disappears. It disappears not because It went somewhere; it disappeared because when one of the rays of this Light shines on our minds, we shine away from it in fear. However these rays of the Light in passing by our minds leave a shadow of it. Although it is only a shadow, it sometimes can make a big difference in our state of mind. A shadow is allowed to stay because it is less fearful to our egos and it can be easily misinterpreted. So the ego is less afraid of it and sometimes it even glad that it is there because it can use to distort the truth.


Sometimes you can do this work alone and sometimes you need a guide to help you. If you are lucky, after being with different guides and they are real sages they helped you to find or they pointed you in the right direction toward your inner guide so that you can travel with your own feet after the work is accomplished with those guides. To travel with your own feet is a powerful experience because it will bring a certainty and a confidence on ourselves that we have never had before which is beyond this world of shadows. You will experience a strength of unbelievable proportions and you will fear no evil whatsoever because you finally realize that they are all only shadows on the walls of the mind of a dreamer.