Many people when embarking on the spiritual path feel that it is a journey which takes too long and that it is difficult. When life's problems arise, they forget what they have learnt and get immersed in samsara and after some time , feel that they have lost the way. A few common questions that comes to us are "Why is it taking long?". "Why is not happening for me?". and so on. Let us look at why this is difficult and also what is more important. It is difficult because of the constant sensory overload of our body into the mind and also the deep rooted beliefs which we have cultivated and have been conditioned over time. But what is more important is not how long it takes , but whether we are maintaining our mumukshavtam or desire for liberation.
There is a beautiful study in a book called "The three Christs of Ypsilanti". The author introduces three mental patients each one of whom believed that they were Jesus Christ himself. As we can see it is a problem of identity. As he goes on investigating them, he finds why the problem of identity has arisen in them and summarizes some points which are interesting.
1) Not all beliefs are important to us. They range from central to peripheral.
2) The central beliefs are more important to us , and they are primitive and difficult to dislodge.
3) Dislodging the central belief dislodges lot of peripheral beliefs .
The problem of identity is the most central and primitive belief in us. This is why it is so difficult to dislodge and question. It is one of the reasons why the path is long and arduous. In this book he underlines what he means by a primitive belief. A primitive belief is one which we have about ourselves, our position in society, our relations and so on. Unlike other beliefs they dont come under discussions and is never looked at for scrutiny or analysis. All our actions are guided by them. More importantly they lie at the center and guide other beliefs also and form our emotional responses to many situations in life.
The primitive belief is also constantly guided by the sensory inputs . All through our life we see constancy of objects , constancy or relations and constancy of self. This leads to our primitive belief to be based on solid facts.
He narrates a story about his two daughters. Once he returned from his clinic and found that the two daughters were quarreling a lot. Repeated attempts to quiet them failed. Now he did a trick
he addressed his elder daughter who was called Ruth as Jane and called Jane as Ruth. Suddenly the two kids stopped and asked " Dad are you playing with us?". He said "No". Now they were confused and started questioning him. They forgot about the quarrel. Now you can see how the question of identity works. As soon you are called as someone else, suddenly that becomes a big problem.
Continuously we receive sensations of the body and questioning the identity based on our body would be equivalent to questioning our sensations and perceptions which hardly results in sanity.
It shatters our sense of integrity as a person. But looking at the mental patients who strongly believe that they are Jesus Christ and the problems they face leads us to see how their erroneous belief can lead to suffering.
We have seen why the problem of identity is difficult to dislodge. Let us now discuss whether the question is important. Even though it is difficult, each seeing that the problems are all coming from the erroneous primitive belief of who we are is more important. The view of who we are not leads to slow dissolution of the identity. It is this constant view that is more important than how long it takes.
Each experience is an opportunity to view .
So patience is a very important trait in spiritual life . We should constantly try to abandon the trammels of the mind and its desires and stay in our true nature.
There is a beautiful study in a book called "The three Christs of Ypsilanti". The author introduces three mental patients each one of whom believed that they were Jesus Christ himself. As we can see it is a problem of identity. As he goes on investigating them, he finds why the problem of identity has arisen in them and summarizes some points which are interesting.
1) Not all beliefs are important to us. They range from central to peripheral.
2) The central beliefs are more important to us , and they are primitive and difficult to dislodge.
3) Dislodging the central belief dislodges lot of peripheral beliefs .
The problem of identity is the most central and primitive belief in us. This is why it is so difficult to dislodge and question. It is one of the reasons why the path is long and arduous. In this book he underlines what he means by a primitive belief. A primitive belief is one which we have about ourselves, our position in society, our relations and so on. Unlike other beliefs they dont come under discussions and is never looked at for scrutiny or analysis. All our actions are guided by them. More importantly they lie at the center and guide other beliefs also and form our emotional responses to many situations in life.
The primitive belief is also constantly guided by the sensory inputs . All through our life we see constancy of objects , constancy or relations and constancy of self. This leads to our primitive belief to be based on solid facts.
He narrates a story about his two daughters. Once he returned from his clinic and found that the two daughters were quarreling a lot. Repeated attempts to quiet them failed. Now he did a trick
he addressed his elder daughter who was called Ruth as Jane and called Jane as Ruth. Suddenly the two kids stopped and asked " Dad are you playing with us?". He said "No". Now they were confused and started questioning him. They forgot about the quarrel. Now you can see how the question of identity works. As soon you are called as someone else, suddenly that becomes a big problem.
Continuously we receive sensations of the body and questioning the identity based on our body would be equivalent to questioning our sensations and perceptions which hardly results in sanity.
It shatters our sense of integrity as a person. But looking at the mental patients who strongly believe that they are Jesus Christ and the problems they face leads us to see how their erroneous belief can lead to suffering.
We have seen why the problem of identity is difficult to dislodge. Let us now discuss whether the question is important. Even though it is difficult, each seeing that the problems are all coming from the erroneous primitive belief of who we are is more important. The view of who we are not leads to slow dissolution of the identity. It is this constant view that is more important than how long it takes.
Each experience is an opportunity to view .
So patience is a very important trait in spiritual life . We should constantly try to abandon the trammels of the mind and its desires and stay in our true nature.
No comments:
Post a Comment