My soon-to-be-daughter-in-law Amy is a very smart woman. She and my son have embarked on a new journey, a new life out in California and I am constantly thrilled and surprised by the changes and revelations they are experiencing. Whether it’s the climate, the people, the culture, or the vortex that vibrates along the fault lines beneath the earth, the potential for enlightenment seems to shimmer like a mist of potential on the west coast. I’ve felt it; I’ve dreamed about it. And I envy them the transformative essence in which they have immersed themselves.
Transformation is a sneaky little bugger, accumulating layer by layer until a new idea saturates and dissolves an old idea. It also springs forth in one epiphanic moment, changing the way you think and feel about life. Amy had one such moment yesterday:
“People think they know someone. . . everyone isn’t privy to a person’s heart and does not know exactly who someone is and does not honestly know that the person they think is so honest and moral and true would cut their throat or stab them in the back and it does not matter how long you actually do [know them], they may not be who you think, that smile could be fake and they could be dark on the inside.”
A thought provoking idea to say the least. Then, the following quote was shared on my timeline by another friend this morning:
“The heart of a human being is no different from the soul of heaven and earth. In your practice always keep in your thoughts the interaction of heaven and earth, water and fire, yin and yang.” Morihei Ueshiba
So, the idea of dark and light and duality seems to be theme of the day which is appropriate and timely for me. I’ve been reading The Four Agreements Companion Book. I don’t know which rock I was under when The Four Agreements originally came out, but I missed its debut. (I just checked the publication date–July 1997–so that particular rock was located in Santa Fe and is better known as the Eastern Classics master’s program at St. John’s College.) It’s only been in the past couple of weeks that the book revealed itself to me. (And I do mean revealed. I believe that messages come to you when you’re ready and obviously, I must be ready.) I saw the author, Don Miguel Ruiz being interviewed on TV over the weekend and became intrigued. And then I found his next book, The Four Agreements Companion Book published in 2000, quietly waiting for me as I browsed the shelves at Goodwill a couple of days ago.
Part 1, Chapter 1:
Human suffering begins with domestication.
During the process of domestication, we form an image of perfection in order to try to be good enough. We create an image of how we should be in order to be accepted by everybody, but we don’t fit that image.
(He had me at hello.)
We create an image of ourselves in our own minds and then we fashion from the raw clay that is our being a mask that represents that image. We look and act and feel to meet the needs of our own expectations of perfection. We hide who we are. We get comfortable with the mask and learn to manipulate it according to circumstance, situation, and comfort level. But our masks are not who we are or what we are or even what we would truly like to be. Our masks are our perfect or imperfect representations of what and who we think we should be.
Amy’s timely revelation becomes a profoundly intuitive truism as we go along our merry way trying to understand ourselves and others. Even with the underlying idea that we are one, we are not able to discern the heart of the individual, hiding behind a mask of civility and perfection that has been fashioned to cultural and societal standards. I would like to see the world work together not to get to the heart of the individual but to create a safe space where masks aren’t necessary, where everyone is free to be who and what we are in all of our glorious spiritual humanity.
Amy responded to a comment I made regarding the light and dark in each of us. She referred to the unknowable in all of us: “. . . they put on a false face to everyone and sometimes even to themselves.”
See? I told you Amy is a very smart woman!
My Wish for You Today!
Cave Dweller: Alone in a Social World 