That's a rather humble title for a blog post. If it was on the cover of a book, a mediocre-seller would be almost guaranteed.
But since I pay good money for the privilege of sharing my views, I figure that truth in blog post advertising is the right policy. I'm a firm believer in "sort of's," as contradictory as that might seem (I'm also into contradictions, except when I'm not.)
The older I get, the more often I've been having aha! moments where a curtain lifts on... something I'm not sure about, and I get a strong insight into... something I'm not sure about.
I guess this is what happens when well-organized religiosity fades and who knows? takes its place. Knowings formed upon a foundation of unknowing are going to be slipperishly formless.
Last night I had my first dream ever about a Gila monster. I don't know if they really have teeth. The one in my dream did. I'm sure of that, because its mouth was clamped onto the skin of my stomach.
I was afraid to try to vigorously pull the Gila monster off, since I figured that a large chunk of my skin would come with it. So I kept poking it in various places on its head and throat, hoping that would make it release its grip.
Nothing worked. I was starting to get panicked. Then I decided to smother it with a pillow, reasoning that if the Gila monster couldn't breathe, it would have to open its mouth.
As soon as I thought of that option, I woke up. Instantly I was back in my "real" world where a Gila monster wasn't biting onto my stomach with sharp teeth. A massive feeling of relief swept over me.
Solving my problem was so simple. All I had to do was wake up from the dream. But while I was dreaming, the notion of waking up wasn't in my repertoire. The waking had seemingly occurred on its own, even though I was the one who'd woken up.
On a related note... sort of.
At the beginning of today's Tai Chi class I found myself making more mistakes than usual. I'd start to throw in a move from a different form than the one we were doing, or I'd be a bit out of sync with my fellow classmates.
Not coincidentally, I realized that my mind also was throwing out more thoughts than usual. My body was doing Tai Chi, or a semblance thereof, while my psyche was off doing something else -- like thinking about what I needed to do after the class was over.
This got tiresome, so I tried to better center myself in the here and now, rather than the there and then.
Standing still, listening to the instructor talk about some Tai Chi'ish point, suddenly I had a pleasing sense of "me" fading away. Like a light dimmer switch being slid in a certain direction, it felt like my subjectivity had been reduced and objectivity turned up.
I wasn't thinking much, or at all, about what was going on in the room. I was simply aware of what was happening. The Tai Chi instructor talking. Other students listening. A street light turning on in the alley outside the window. Cars going by on Court Street.
It was refreshing to have less "Me" inside my head, and more "It." Meaning, I felt an ease in just being conscious of what was present. The pressure had lifted of commenting on it, judging it, dealing with it, analyzing it.
When we returned to doing Tai Chi forms, I found that I was moving better. There wasn't a noticeable split any longer between my body and my mind. I wasn't so much aware of myself doing Tai Chi, as I was simply aware of doing Tai Chi.
Driving home, I thought, "A big part of life's problems is making the objective subjective, and the subjective objective."
Well, hey, it made sense to me at the time. And it still does, no matter how nonsensical that sentence sounds. But only sort of. That's what I'm into now: secrets of the universe that are sort of's.
Inner experiences vary. I remember one old man asking a child to feel his pulse and check whether he was alive. The child was frightened.
Posted by: Bharat Bhushan | September 17, 2010 at 05:31 AM