Seeing Through Projection
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A question about how the dissolution of control and the confrontation with death can shift one's perception of others, and how projection reveals the mind's own sense of lack.
Seeing Through Projection
A question about how the dissolution of control and the confrontation with death can shift one's perception of others, and how projection reveals the mind's own sense of lack.
What has helped shift things for me, very slowly but radically, is that back in April I reached a point where controlling was no longer an option. I couldn't find a steering wheel anymore; it was gone. So I had to go through it. I wasn't going to go through it if I didn't have to, but there was no choice. And slowly, not only did I not die, but it was like I was on vacation from that whole struggle.
And you can see how this is iterative, right? You're more free now, but there still remain the fears and pains that the mind can imagine, the ones you do not want to feel. The veil of "keep me from seeing reality" changes. You can see more of reality, but you are still veiled, and you still want to look away.
And then there is a kind of ultimate: death. Because we are identified with something limited, the ultimate thing we want to avoid is the end of me.
That's exactly what I've been obsessing about the last two days. Death has been coming up.
The ultimate fear
Death is the ultimate thing that is feared, and it is perceived or imagined as the ultimate pain.
Totally. And it feels impossible to deal with. Me, escaped.
What is talked about spiritually as "waking up" or realization is when that is fully seen, and that which is imagined as death is experienced while alive. When the identification with something that can end itself ends, then nothing can be experienced or imagined to be "me dying, me ending." But that transition is the dark night.
I have to be careful here not to turn this into what I was describing earlier, like the self-flagellating monks. One can hear what I'm saying and then face death by trying to create some form of really intense fear and pain, trying to stay with it and be safe in it. But if that is done intentionally, it is going to be controlled.
Right. What it seems to me is that as long as I focus on here and now, whatever needs to come up is going to come up. That's the trust in the process, the trust in reality, whatever you want to call it. I don't have to prepare myself ahead of time. Because I'm here. I'm not there.
That's what is so helpful for me: when you talk about what you are being here, then there's nowhere to go.
What is always here
You can contemplate that. What is always here? What never goes anywhere? What is always here and cannot travel toward tomorrow?
When this moment becomes the next moment and everything that is experienced changes, even the thinking patterns and the stories about "me" (those come and go, those change), from one moment of experience to another, which is a completely different moment of experience, what remains the same?
That's awareness. That's being. It's unchanging. My teacher used to say: "incoloro, inodoro." No color, no smell. It has none.
In more contemporary Advaita circles, it is referred to as the screen.
That which is always there, the last thing you notice.
Where does experience appear? What is it made of? That which is the essence, the substance, cannot go anywhere, because time and space appear in it and are made from it. It cannot change. It cannot go anywhere.
But if you divide it, if you split experience into duality, then there is a "here" and a "there," a "before" and an "after." Now you can travel from here to there and get from now to then. But these are not two things. This is what physics, thanks to Einstein, realized: time and space are the same thing. They appear by splitting reality in two.
So now you can have movement and change. There is something that can go to something else, and there is movement and time for that change to happen. Time is needed for a change to happen, for a before and an after. And you need two things for something to move to something else.
It's all in perception, and we don't even realize it's a projection. We just think it's the truth. That's amazing.
Not two
That's why reality is pointed to as that which the mind splits in two, but which is one. That's Advaita. But it's not exactly "one." In Taoism they speak of the Tao as oneness, which is quite beautiful, but for there to be one, there needs to be two. One is already counting. Counting what?
That's why I prefer "Advaita," because it is the negation of two. It's not two. What is it? Is it one? No, it's not two. Is it zero? No. Is it one? No. It's just not two. It's very mathematical, very rational, but it points to reality.
You can call it being, the self without another, the subject without an object, the original face, the sound of what is unmoved. That's what Om is: the sound of "not two." Om in Hinduism is a sound that points to that. It creates the sound of reality, the sound of Advaita. You create the sound and it is here, now, always here. It cannot go anywhere. It cannot be in the future, cannot be in the past. It cannot be "there." It is Om.
The process of alignment
The body-mind needs to align with that. It takes a process for the brain to shift, the body to shift, because it is aligned with two.
But that is not the end. The end, which is Advaita, is: once being is realized, then there is freedom to be, to live, to be ethical. Then there is relationship. But it is relationship contained by the end of subjects and objects relating. That's paradoxical. You cannot understand it, but you have to constantly point to the contradiction. When I say white, I have to say black. When I say black, I have to say white.
But it's a non-doing. It's just being together. I can see that. I know the separate self. There's a doing, but the doing is happening.
The doing is in the non-doing. Non-doing action. Inaction. Formlessness is form. Form is formlessness.
The formless brings forth form, and then the form returns to the formless.
It doesn't "return," because it is formless and form simultaneously. Form is formlessness; formlessness is form. It doesn't change from one to the other. It is both.
It's that we're perceiving it. So it's the noticing of the perceiving of it. Exactly.
I spent time recently with three people I've known for a while, and I perceived and experienced each one of them so differently. If I wanted any kind of affirmation that I'm on the right path, there it was. There was no doing, but I saw doing. And who did that? It was just happening.
How did you perceive them differently?
Seeing through character flaws
Each one in their own way. With one person, I would normally focus on his character flaws and decide they're not okay. But that all melted away, and what I saw was light. It was beautiful. We connected on such a lovely level. He's always been radiating something; there's something about him I always notice. But he has these character flaws. And now I ask: whose character flaws was I seeing? That's what I mean when I talk about projecting. It looks like it's out there. It's such a trick.
But somehow, through these meetings, the meditation, the dialogues, whatever is part of the process, these projections disappear.
The ultimate sign of realization is to be a benevolent presence.
And that's what this person is. The one with the character flaws. He absolutely is. It's so funny.
Projection and benevolence
If you are able to see beyond that, even if it is projection, that is significant. Usually, where we project is often a fitting place for the projection. It's often pretty accurate. You don't easily project evil where there is goodness, and vice versa.
So the character flaws can be seen, but there is something more that becomes the foreground.
Exactly. And maybe the better distinction is this: the schtick that people have, I can experience as a lack. And that lack is painful for me. As opposed to it just being schtick, like someone having a scar. It's totally neutral rather than being a problem for me.
That really reflects you. It's your mind. The more you can see through that (not necessarily ignore it, but see through it), the more what becomes foreground is what you're calling the light, the radiance, the being. From there you can connect. Imagine the energy you bring when you project lack, versus when you see through whatever the mind labels as imperfections. When what is more essential is seen, you bring more benevolence, and that invites more benevolence.
Because when you see lack, you first have to start from experiencing lack in yourself. So there is less benevolence toward oneself, and then that is projected as lack in another. That is the energy going outward, and it will invite in the other person defense, self-criticism, attack.