Michael Jocson Physiotherapy is a health and wellness consulting practice in NYC, utilizing physical therapy, corrective exercise, nutrition, life coaching, and energy medicine. This blog is to provide updates for clients/patients and other thoughts to help them heal and evolve.
Monday, September 6, 2010
“I am dead because I lack desire,
I lack desire because I think I possess.
I think I possess because I do not try to give.
In trying to give, you see that you have nothing;
Seeing that you have nothing, you try to give of yourself;
Trying to give of yourself, you see that you are nothing:
Seeing that you are nothing, you desire to become;
In desiring to become, you begin to live.”
— In a brief Postface to "Mount
Analogue" written by René Daumal
To live is to Be and for many what they think is living can actually be viewed as the "living dead" where to Be is Presence and in the Now and anything other than the Now is the past or future (or that which does not actually exist and is a mind construct that provides reference for the actual given moment). We live in an outside reality where there are three dimensions of space and one dimension of time and it is this outer reality that enslaves our attention until we remember that we are an inner reality that is beyond the outer four dimensions. This is when one truly contemplates the question " Who am I?"
As long as we allow ourselves to be lostin the boundaries, or our reference points, the Now becomes dead to us. We are dead and yet physically alive because the mind habitually attaches to what we know in the forms of our beliefs, opinions, and past experiences with little chance for the actual given moment to reveal itself to us. How often and easy it is for our opinions to get in the way from a potentially enlightening experience only to assassinate the blossoming of Creativity in its tracks of newness.
Can we "get out of the way" and allow each moment to reveal itself to us? Yes, we can and this is when the "living dead" become the "living alive"; And to Live is to turn off the high beams and trust that your headlights are good enough for you to see through the Darkness of Nothingness....
I recently saw the movie Inception with Leonardo DiCaprio and I highly recommend it and I’d also suggest you go see it with a clear head since it can easily play mental kung fu with you. It is movies like this and Avatar that are subtlety exposing the general public to the possibilities of other realities beside what we consider to be our reality right here on this big blue planet. In the spiritual science of anthroposophy as taught by Rudolf Steiner, he lectures about “higher worlds” which are the Soul and Spirit worlds that are beyond what the physical senses can perceive. What we are accustomed to in our everyday lives is what is visible and these higher worlds are considered the invisible. In Inception, the story involves the concept of lucid dreaming where DiCaprio’s character, Cob, is an “extractor” who gets into people’s dreams and steals information from them. Cob is then involved in a situation where rather than stealing info he gets to actually implant an idea, like a seed, into a person’s psyche which has such great implications that he is initially hesitant because of the possible dangers.
When we dream, our Soul goes off into these higher worlds and through dreaming our Soul has an opportunity to communicate to us anything important that we may be missing in our awakened, conscious state. Some of the greatest minds in Human history came up with their greatest achievements while dreaming. The dream state can be considered a parallel universe, or reality, that is invisible. The higher worlds are invisible to us for good reason and that would be because it would most likely scare the living shit out of you if the veil was removed and you had no preparation or training to be aware of the expansiveness and power that’s hidden beneath. Other cases, such as with psychedelic drug use, these higher worlds can be so alluring and blissful that a person can begin confusing realities and become lost. There are countless stories where the dangers of a misguided journey to the higher worlds can lead to physical death or even demonic possession (yes, this does exist). The good news is that our ignorance to these worlds is sort of like our protection until we earn our “wings” and break through the veil with our own will. And it is also through our pain and suffering that we are protected until we grow and learn from these experiences that help us become more enlightened to the darkness of the invisible worlds. So be grateful for any pain or suffering you experience because they are the leash that tethers us from flying away before we learn how to fly on our own and they help us make sense of our reality here in this lifetime. If we don’t cope and grow from the pain and suffering, we typically end up over-medicated or sent to the “looney bin” mental institution for more “zombie” medication.
In ancient times, those who felt called to know more about the Soul/Spirit worlds were called “Initiates” and were trained in “Mystery” schools. In modern times, the Mystery schools have disappeared (or at least placed under the radar only for those who have been called to seek them) and have been replaced by materialism. Teachings such as Steiner’s and the works of anthroposophy shed some light for those called on the unmarked path for the Holy Grail. In Inception, Cob’s wife, Ma, believes that the dream world is the real reality and the awakened, conscious state is the dream (or “fake” world) and she chooses the dream world by committing suicide in the awakened, conscious state only to lose her physical body in this lifetime. This reminds me of those old news stories of mass suicides by cult members enticed by a guru to leave this world with promises of salvation into another.
Spoiler Alert – For those who haven’t seen Inception yet and want to, please do not read any further and then come back to this point after you’ve seen it.
There is a bit of controversy at the end of the movie where the audience is left with the question of whether or not Cob was still dreaming when he was reunited with his kids. The scene is where he spins his top (a totem he uses to distinguish between the dreaming state and the conscious, awakened state where if the top continues spinning, he’s dreaming and if it stops spinning, he’s awake) and then is distracted by the greeting of his kids who he hasn’t seen in awhile and the audience is left with the top spinning but suddenly starts to falter as the screen fades to black as the final scene of the movie. Was it real or was it a dream? One can wrap their mind around this several ways or may even watch the movie several times to figure this out. Did the director do this to indicate a possible sequel? We really can not know and only the director knows; but I offer another perspective: maybe it doesn’t really matter whether or not it was real or a dream. Maybe the important thing to understand is that Cob was reunited with his children and is no longer held captive by his feelings of guilt towards his wife’s death and it was his will through choice that this happened. Whether it was real or a dream, it was his choice to be happy and free in that last scene. Any debate of real or not real is an anchor to the world of duality, or opposites, where there is always a separation where one chooses sides and moves away from Unity and Understanding. Maybe the director has planted a seed within the audience, an act of inception, an idea that other realities do exist beyond what we believe to be our current reality and that ultimately we have a choice whether or not to explore the many possibilities. Maybe the seed is to help us understand that it is not about choosing one world over the other but to learn the best of all worlds and grow from there. What’s going on at the surface of the Ocean is no indication of what’s going on at the Ocean floor unless one has the Courage to go deeper and find out for themselves. That, my friend, is the take-Home message.....
Here's one of my favorite passages from RUMI where he describes the path of suffering and "bad luck" as an opportunity to explore the Soul ever so deeply:
Look at the chickpea floating in the pot, how it leaps when it's put under the fire. As it's being boiled, it keeps rising to the top; it cries out in 100 ways, saying. "Why are you scalding me with fire? Since you thought I was good enough to buy, why are you turning me upside down now?"
The cook goes on hitting it with her ladle and says, "Come on now! Boil nicely; don't try to escape the one who made the fire. I'm not boiling you because I hate you, but rather so you can become tasty and flavorful, and gain good qualities and mingle with the spirit of the soup. This pain that you're enduring now isn't because you're unloved. When you were young and fresh in the garden you drank in water. Your drinking of that water then was for the sake of burning in this fire now!"
God's mercy comes before His wrath, and part of His mercy is you being made to suffer from hardships. Through His wrath, you learn to give up your foolish desires for this material world. O Chickpea, keep on boiling in turmoil, so that neither your desire to exist nor your ego may remain a part of you.
Here's some more RUMI to help those who may be experiencing some frustration in our current state of affairs:
O you who treat others badly simply because of your high status; know that you're digging a hole for yourself to fall into. Don't weave a cocoon of false pretenses around yourself like a silkworm; you're digging a hole for yourself! Don't dig so eagerly!
Many of the evils that you see in others are really just a reflection of your own evil in them. In their reflection, all your hypocrisy, evil, and arrogance are made apparent. You're the real wicked one! You're aiming blows at yourself and laying curses upon your own head at every turn.
You don't recognize the evil within yourself at all, for if you did you would hate yourself to the very core. You're assaulting yourself, you fool, like a deceived lion who rushed at himself upon seeing his reflection in a pool.
O you who see bad reflections in the face of your uncle, your uncle is not the bad one, it's you, so don't run away from facing your own self.
The Prophet said that the faithful are mirrors of each other. If you hold a blue colored glass before your eyes, then the world appears blue to you. Unless you're blind, you must recognize that this blueness comes from within your own self. Speak of the evil within yourself before you ever speak of the evil in others.
There is many a one whose eye is awake, yet whose heart is asleep. In the end, what can creatures made of water and clay ever see?
The one who keeps his heart awake, though the eye of his head yet sleeps - such a heart will open 100 eyes!
If you're not in possession of an opened heart yet, then remain awake in study throughout the night. Look for that heart that can open, and struggle against your earthly desires.
If your heart is always awake, then rest in peace, for your inner eye is never dimmed from seeing the world around it. The description of an awakened heart, O spiritual being, could not be accomplished even in thousands of verses!
Recently I was asked by my wife what was behind my need to read more books and learn more knowledge. At the time, I could not answer her and simply answered, “I don’t know.” After meditating and allowing this question to settle what initially came up on the surface was a revelation that my need to know more was linked to old behavioral patterns/issues regarding my ego’s need for recognition and approval. But that was just dust on the surface. I further realized that ultimately what was underneath the ego’s needs was a running away from what Is and what Is is who I am. Reproducing or re-enacting the past in expectation of a specific result based upon one’s past experience is like running uphill towards some non-existent prize; it is fatiguing and without insight of Reality and goes against the flow of Life. Nothing in Life is ever the same and everything is constantly changing. Trying to maintain such “sameness” ultimately leads towards a vicious cycle of suffering. “I do this because I felt happy the last time I did it”; but when one’s expectations are not met, suffering occurs. Acceptance of what Is and understanding the newness of every moment allows us to step into our Being so that we can get some sense of who we truly are.
I understand now that whatever comes my way is just what I need at every given moment. In this sense, all of my needs are met. But this does not imply that I should not have wants or desires. The take-home lesson is that when we have our wants and desires as a foundation of our identity and existence, our attachments to them provide for an unstable surface to experience Life with. But rather if our foundation is what Is and a deeper awareness of who we are, there is nothing that can stand in our way. In other words, we pursue our wants and desires without attachments knowing that they are simply outward manifestations of aspects of who we already are. It is like the carpenter who builds a chair and has no worries if the chair is broken because he can simply make another one if he desires. Our wants and desires can help guide us to find meaning and purpose in Life.
The past month or so I have been experiencing some physical pain that has no significant rhyme or reason or connection to any specific cause. Rather than stress out and worry about these symptoms I chose to slow down my life even more and be openly receptive to whatever “popped up” and allow it to reveal itself to me. Intuitively, I was gathering that in some quantum manner I was “spontaneously evolving” where deep down into my DNA and each one of my trillions of cells, change was occurring and this change was not only on a physical level but also on the level of consciousness as well. The type of books I have been reading were all related in that they all were unifying matter and Spirit; they were scientifically proving the existence of God, or a quantum consciousness, where this Divine vacuum is a matrix in which we are all interconnected. These books along with some other researching I’ve been pursuing have helped me greatly in helping others in understanding health and guiding them in finding meaning in Life. In modern physics there is what’s called the “bootstrap” theory where you take a little bit from everything and tie it all together to give an understanding of the bigger picture of existence. I basically am evolving into studying a little bit of everything and bringing them all together into unity with a greater understanding of our inter-relatedness with the All.
When the dust was cleared, the revelation was revealed: the spontaneous evolution as coined by biologist/author Bruce Lipton, is in full effect and I am in transition of letting go of the old beliefs, stories, past experiences, knowledge, etc so as to make more room for new ones. And whatever book or new knowledge I seek is really a reminder of what I have forgotten and I trust that whatever I am reminded of is just what I need at that moment in the journey of my Life experience. I share this with you because I know many of you are experiencing similar revelations and it can be too easy to get trapped in our old stories, or patterns of behaviors that are no longer serving for us. Let it be known that you are changing and you have a choice to welcome the change or to shut the door on it. I recommend leaving the door wide open.....
For those interested, the last three books I’ve read this past month are (in the order I read them):
What happens when we get sick or when we have pain? We tend to want to immediately feel better and reach or do the first thing that we can think of to accomplish that goal. The illness and pain are considered foes and we commit to a war to “battle” and fight against the “evils” of ill-feeling and angst of pain. Let us take another perspective, shall we?
There’s an old parable of Jesus as he was walking with his disciples and passed a dead, decaying dog. His disciples were appalled by the sight and commented on the ugliness of the scene. But Jesus commented otherwise and said, “Look at those pearly, white teeth!”. The fruit of this story is that even what may appear as “ugly”, there is always Beauty to be found. When we experience sickness or pain, where’s the “pearly, white teeth”? The obvious symptoms of fatigue, body aches, discomfort, coughing, sneezing, congestion, decreased physical activity, and any other symptom appears to grab all of our attention. What can we learn from this experience?
The Beauty Perspective
Being sick or in pain does have its merits. We are forced to slow down. We are forced to think less and thus slow down the workings of the mind. We are forced to eat less. And most importantly, we are forced to pay more attention to everything we do, think, or say and especially pay more attention to the body and mind. Now let us imagine if we applied all of these things we are “forced” to do when we are sick or injured when we are not sick or injured. Imagine how much healthier you can be by slowing down your present lifestyle; by giving the troubled mind a break every once in awhile; by eating less than you already do; and by being more aware and mindful of the body and mind so that you can open the door for the Soul to express. Let us be grateful that being sick or injured allows us to remember these healthful actions.
It is not until the warrior stops and Listens that he/she can lay down their sword and stop the fighting in their life. We always have a choice to make Life a battle or an awesome, enlightening experience...
