COMING TO OUR SENSES

A parable from the Buddha: A man travelling across a field encountered a tiger. He fled, the tiger after him. Coming to a precipice, he caught hold of the root of a wild vine and swung himself down over the edge. The tiger sniffed at him from above. Trembling, the man looked down to where, far below, another tiger was waiting to eat him. Only the vine sustained him. Two mice, one white and one black, little by little started to gnaw away the vine. The man saw a luscious strawberry near him. Grasping the vine with one hand, he plucked the strawberry with the other. How sweet it tasted!

Proximity to death has a way of instilling wisdom and providing a clarity of perspective that the rest of life often does not provide. There is also an intensification of life that comes with the awareness of one’s approaching end. We may know people who have reported or appeared being the happiest during the interval between being told that they would have only a limited time to live and their death. They use the time to take a look at their bucket list.

What is the process that makes this possible in such a critical time as the spectre of one’s impending death? Perhaps the more appropriate question is: Why do we not live the entire lifetime that precedes the nearness of death with awareness and intensity? The answer could be summed up briefly – the mind. The mind that is so powerful and so necessary in daily life becomes an obstacle when it moves from its function of helping us live efficiently and intelligently into the past and future and takes up residence there. Without the present moment experience, and without the power of our senses available to us, life is dull, boring and wearisome. Imagine the vast difference between tasting a fruit and thinking or talking about it. Think of the difference between enjoying today’s beautiful sunset without thinking of the magnificent one of yesterday.

Closely related to this is also the psychological fact of desires, longings and fears that prevent us from experiencing the present moment. Our senses work only in the moment, our minds take flight in time. For us to experience aliveness, our senses have to be awake and present. There is great relevance to the call to lose your mind and come to your senses! For once we get caught in mental games, we do not enjoy what is present. It is no wonder having much comes with no assurance of great happiness. It is not necessarily those who have all they want who enjoy all they experience. Mark Nepo offers this brilliant line: The greedy one gathered all the cherries, while the simple one tasted all the cherries in one.

AWARENESS AND CREATIVITY

Many years ago a friend confided that he felt inferior and discouraged because he lacked creativity. He could name several people he knew who were creative but he was not one of them. He had not invented anything. He had not written a poem or story. He could not draw or paint. Obviously he was not creative.

In response, I referred to his problem solving skills in the work place. I reminded him of a few instances where his intervention had repaired damaged relationships among friends. I showed him also how he had generated happiness in the lives of a number of people. He had not seen these as being creative. Nor had he seen his imaginative ways of organising his office or dealing with tricky situations. He had not listed these among gifts or abilities he could be proud of.

Creativity is a vital quality. There is a great deal of joy in being creative. There is also considerable frustration when a person’s creativity and self-expression are blocked. In fact in the depression experienced by many people, blocked creativity is a common theme though they do not often see it quite that way.

A narrow definition of creativity prevents many of us from recognising its presence in ourselves. Besides, in the general deadness of a life that is caught up in the mechanical day to day living, most of us are simply out of touch with ourselves. We cannot be creative without having some level of self-awareness and vitality. Creativity is a reflection of our aliveness, a measure of our awareness.

REALITY IS RUINING MY DAY!

Reflection

“Before I came to see you I was quite happy, but after listening to you, so much muck has been stirred up inside I feel depressed,” a listener moaned.

“Awareness shines on the pleasant and the unpleasant alike,” the sage replied. “If you stop stirring it even more with your judgements, the muck will settle and the water will reflect your face again.”

(Francis J. Padinjarekara: A DEWDROP IN THE OCEAN – Wisdom Stories for Turbulent Times. Awareness Arc, 2008 pg. 42)

Many clients dealing with difficult issues in psychotherapy have said, “Before I came to see you, I was feeling much better. Now I’m suffering. Instead of taking away my pain, you’re only adding to it!” Our illusions are comforting, seeing things as they are can be very painful. It is no wonder that people do not give up their illusions without a flight. They would prefer to live in the illusions that have kept them secure rather than face the consequences of waking up to reality.

Suppose waking up means recognizing that the relationship that you had put everything into was only an infatuation that has played out and there is nothing more left in it. Suppose you wake up to realize that you have been playing victim all along. Now you can no longer plead helplessness, blame others and wait for help but you have to take responsibility for your life. Or you may realize that you are sad and lonely in spite of all the noises in your life that keep you amused or that you use distractions to keep loneliness at bay. You may notice that you have created a neat little mess in your life, relationship or finances, and it is clean up time and you have to do it yourself. All this calls for a change of outlook, a turn around, and at least in the beginning it may look like an unattractive option.

A client who was going through a difficult phase and making some headway had his sense of humour back when he said not long ago, “Reality is ruining my day!”

REPLACEMENT OF SYMPTOMS

While the Master did not oppose the practice of psychotherapy and even claimed that it was necessary for some people, he made no secret of is opinion that a psychotherapist merely brings relief; he does not really solve your problem – he merely exchanges it for another, more comfortable, one.

He recalled sitting in a bus after the War, intrigued to see a passenger holding a heavy object wrapped in a newspaper.

“What’s that you’ve got on your lap?” the bus conductor demanded.

“An unexploded bomb. I’m taking to the Fire Department.”

“Heaven’s above, man! You don’t want to carry a thing like that on your lap! Put it under your seat!”

(Anthony de Mello: One Minute Nonsense)

A depressed person who goes to a psychiatrist or GP gets an anti-depressant. If he is afflicted by insomnia he gets a tablet to help him sleep better. In a few days he feels great, he sleeps well. In course of time as he continues to feel well enough, the doctor may be quite sure that the patient can do without the medication and in most cases it is gladly discontinued. In numerous instances the patient is back after another episode of depression looking for more medication. In some cases the patient is maintained on the medicine for a very long time. Medications like antidepressants are indeed helpful but they cannot solve problems for people. Life issues have to be dealt with and difficulties confronting us have to faced if we wish to avoid recurring episodes of such illnesses.

Many people will readily agree that medicines do not solve life problems for us and we are wise to go for psychotherapy to help us. It certainly is beneficial but there is no guarantee that therapy will in fact help. What is true for medicines holds good also for therapy: no therapy will do the living for us.

The biggest problem with most psychotherapies is that as they are busy solving problems, they are only minimizing or eradicating the symptoms people have. The depressed person has to be helped to feel better, the anxious person has to become calm, the passive person has to be taught to be more assertive. Most therapy does not go deep enough – they too stop at symptoms. They may change behaviours, cure phobias, impart some skills. They do not always help or challenge people to face life directly and honestly and with no make up on. That is quite acceptable because most people in any case are looking for quick fixes achieved through various tricks and techniques that are abundant in various psychotherapeutic modalities. Most people are content to feel good, not necessarily change.

Awareness is a necessary for therapists to see not only what they are doing but also the impact of their work. Without this essential element, therapy gets reduced to symptom removal and trivialized into a series of tricks and gimmicks. Therapy is a powerful help for people only when it helps them to open their eyes to life.

CHANGE THROUGH INTOLERANCE

Civil War

At the end of a discussion about the conflicts and tensions that people encounter, a participant asked, “What in your experience is the root cause of our conflicts?”

“We’re disturbed because we run away from who we are and try to become who we are not,” the sage replied. “We keep attempting to reach for what we can’t get while ignoring what is always available. We’ll find stillness only when this civil war has ended.”

(Francis J. Padinjarekara: A DEWDROP IN THE OCEAN – Wisdom Stories for Turbulent Times. Awareness Arc Books, 2009. pg. 222)

Everybody seems to want to change and become somebody else. Short people often wish to  gain a few inches and those who believe they are overweight wish to shed a few pounds of their weight. The curly haired ones look for straight hair and the straight haired people want to straighten their hair. Where fair skin is at a premium all kinds of creams and lotions are available to achieve the desired complexion. Where darker colours are preferred, the standards and efforts shift in that direction. Where thin is the prevailing standard of beauty, those who feel they are beyond norm may try even through starvation to arrive at a desirable level of thinness and acceptability.

This alone would have been sufficient to keep a multi-billion industry flourishing. Add to this our search to change our personalities and inner states. When our anger lands us in trouble,  we may want to become gentle. If we are tightfisted we may wish to become generous, if we are selfish we attempt to become selfless. Sinners try to become saints and neurotics want to become self-actualized. The relentless search for personal growth and inner transformation has created not only a huge supplement to the cosmetic industry but also a great deal of conflict and intolerance of ourselves.

The paradox is all too often missed. We are trying to find peace through conflict and growth through self-rejection. Every effort we make to become someone else takes us away from the reality of who we are. Besides, it is also the path of inner conflict and disturbance.

Understanding and acceptance of reality, however unflattering and unpleasant it may be, is the only way to peace and lasting change. It certainly is the first step towards growth and freedom. As Anthony de Mello repeatedly points out in his teachings, the path of awareness is indeed the way of acceptance.

THE QUESTION TO ASK OF REALITY

Inquiry

A visitor who was greatly exercised over the impact of the sage’s teachings, spoke up, “I don’t think what you teach is good for us. It’s quite contrary to what our society has instilled in us.”

“The first question to ask of any reality is not whether it’s good or bad, for that is a judgement that blocks all inquiry,” the sage responded calmly. “Instead let the first question be if it’s true or false.”

(F. Padinjarekara: A Dewdrop in the Ocean – Wisdom Stories for Turbulent Times. Awareness Arc, 2009)

TRANSFORMATION THROUGH AWARENESS

HEALING

To a distressed person who came to him for help, the Master said, “Do you really want a cure?”

“If I did not, would I bother to come to you?”

“Oh yes. Most people do.”

“What for?”

“Not for a cure. That’s painful. For relief.”

To his disciples the Master said, “People who want a cure provided they can have it without pain are like those who favour progress provided they can have it without change.”  (Anthony de Mello: One Minute Wisdom)

Tony de Mello often used to comment on people paying a lot of money to their therapists in order to change and to be happy and from the word go proceed to sabotage the very process they had begun. So they would fight the therapist and use all kinds of strategies to make sure that they would not change. Why then would they take all that trouble and spend all that money? It is not to change, Tony would assure us, but to feel good. People are looking for relief, not the resolution of their problems.

This is why he would emphasise the vital role of Awareness in the process of change. Without that essential ingredient, transformation is impossible for us and all our psychotherapy is of no use except giving us the satisfaction that we are doing something about the problem. People may derive great comfort from being listened to or experience catharsis from the expression of long held emotions, but that does not mean there is change. But the moment their eyes open to see the truth of a situation or problem, change happens quickly.

When psychotherapy combines in it that essential quality called Awareness, and helps a person to see what he or she needs to see, a powerful process of transformation begins. Many lives have been transformed by Tony’s work with people. This is the result not of the employment of traditional counseling skills he had learned as a student at Loyola University of Chicago but through “Spiritual Counselling’” as he would describe his work in later years.

This integration of counseling and the spirituality named Awareness is an important part of Tony’s legacy. This approach is a wholesome and often speedy way for the process of transformation.