Discipline and Intent Part I

Looking back on the first sessions of counselling that I underwent, on that very first "real life encounter" with psychology,  in fact looking back on the first years of therapy, I now realise that I didn't really know what I was doing it for. Of course in a vague fashion I thought that I was in it to "find myself" which in those days meant to find some wonderful, charming, confident person who was hiding behind this difficult, unhappy, diffident creature I seemed to be. I imagined that finding yourself meant to trade one personality for another, one kind of role for another. I had this idea that some day at the end of  numerous sessions of talking with the therapist and participating in workshops and carrying out various exercises, I would become rich and famous and spend the rest of my life on cloud nine. Or if not I would at least be very happy and content and never feel bothered by anything again.

By and by it became apparent to me that cloud nine would remain cloud nine and that meant it would remain in a fantasy world. I became aware that no matter how rich or lively my discussions with people were, or how deep the interaction with various therapists, self discovery involved giving up something you were mostly unwilling to give up. I began to see the fact that self awareness had in the beginning seemed like a nice thing to fool around with. Essentially I was looking for a way to shake off the discomfort of my situation and to find myself a nice comfortable niche in life.

Having to some extent found such a niche for a while, I realised that this was not, after all what I wanted. The dependency on (indeed, addiction to) comfort was too restricting. I was not getting from it what I was looking for. I still didn't know what I was looking for but I realised it was not a cozy corner constructed out of ideas and concepts, to spend the rest of my life talking about. That was too depressingly boring!

Years later - a long time after embarking on  the rather wobbly journey into the self I saw during a meditation with a group of friends what it was that I really wanted. I realised I was tired of the complicated dance we were doing with each other. On this occasion, I was able to establish direct and simple contact with a few people in the room. I saw that when this contact took place without any ulterior motives of wanting to be liked or wanting to impress  the other person, when the core of you met the core of another person, a new and very refreshing energy began to flow between the people concerned. This, I felt, was love. I realised that what I was looking for, really was nothing other than love, nothing other than a pure and simple connectedness to others, to the world. Having seen it however, I also saw how far I was from achieving it. It felt as though I had only just begun on the true journey after all, because I had only just seen and become aware of what I had always  wanted and needed.

At some point I came to see the paradox of self discovery. To find yourself essentially means to lose yourself! When you lose your "self," when the proud, greedy, self important you, always seeking attention, always seeking approval, begins to dissolve, you begin to notice what you never noticed as long as you were preoccupied with your own problems, your own security, your need to control others and so on. The more the bits of my "self"  dissolved, the deeper became the access to the energy that surrounds us all, the easier it became to understand others, to get a feel of them, to sense my way into what was happening in them. The less obsessed I became with myself, the more interested I became in others.  And this  new interest in life,  is what paved the way  to learning and change.

Uma

Comments

[Jyotsna]

So true Uma.