Chapter 4. Lost

This is the text to the film https://youtu.be/cjkxmkjJ1rc

It’s autumn and my feet long to go hiking. I enjoy the clear air of the Pyrenees mountains and the nearly tangible peacefulness. Nature displays a blaze of color and enchants me so that I travel along almost without noticing. It’s been hours since my last encounter with another person, so I am surprised when I come across another hiker. He seems very alarmed. After a short conversation I find out that the man is off his route and unable to determine his location. While we examine the route map, we find out that we are headed to the same village. So, we hike together for the remainder of the journey. We keep up a casual conversation, but the man’s concern comes up between the lines. He should already be at his lodgings getting ready for an aperitif and dinner to follow. As we get closer to our destination, I can sense his relief. In the end he is only 30 minutes late. When we arrive to the village, we say goodbye with French air kisses and wish each other a nice evening. As we are parting company I am astonished to find that the man has no travel companion, and no one is waiting for him at dinner!
 
 
Fear – the world of a separate self
I recognize his distress. Fear cannot be dismissed by reason. It can be born out of seemingly insignificant things. However, what is small and unremarkable at first, transforms into something remarkable when fear crawls out of its cave. In our lives fear disguises itself so skillfully that it’s difficult to see what’s behind the mask. Nevertheless, every manifestation of fear originates in and is kept alive by the same source: the belief in separation. As a consequence of this belief, experiencing seems to be divided into a subject and an object. From a dualistic point of view every experience has a subject, a separate ”I”, who experiences something. Identifying as an independent experiencer casts a shadow over all experiences and prevents us from seeing the nature of personality: it is a perspective through and by which experiencing takes place.
 
Due to identification with our personality, our being seems to be limited and tied to the body and its destination. The separate self is a focal point around which events revolve, and all thoughts, feelings and perceptions seem very personal. Once formed, they are overlaid on our being resulting in a belief and, more importantly, a feeling that our being is limited, temporary and separate and moreover, that it shares the qualities and destiny of the body. No wonder that the separate self is always alert to danger, ready to react and protect itself from any potential hazards which might threaten its safety and existence.
 
I hear my phone beep. Even though I’ve kept my day free of social media, I can’t help peeking at the screen. A quick glance reveals a message from the police. My heart begins to pound, and I also feel sweat beads on my forehead, but I decide to ignore the message and turn the phone off. It feels like a stormy wind has swept away the serenity I felt after my hike.
 
I try to dismiss the turmoil in my mind, but after moments of struggle I give up and venture to take a closer look at the message. To my astonishment I discover that the message is from the post office – my alarmed mind just made a different interpretation!
 
Shielding oneself
I’m surprised at the turn that my hiking day has taken. It seems evident that life has brought up important things for me to face in the form of a lost hiker and a phone message. I recognize that the need to shield myself creates a blind spot where I feel anxious about encountering the unknown - as if there were invisible, unnamed threats that I must hide from. To keep the menacing scenarios at bay I’ve tried to control life and aimed to create a world that matches my expectations. One that protects me against unwanted intruders and doesn’t stir up my fears.
 
The mind gets easily disturbed, when life doesn’t turn out the way one had hoped, planned, or expected.  I can see how easily I get emotionally upset, if another person doesn’t behave in a way, I think she should, or if a situation isn’t what I expect it to be. However, by defining what is right and wrong, pleasant, and unpleasant, good, and bad, I only impose limits on situations where I feel comfortable and secure. Strangely enough, I have been convinced that this is the right thing to do.
 
Suddenly lifelike images start to pop into my mind, it feels like watching myself in a movie. I sink into my armchair as if in a cinema and I am curious to see what the movie will show me. I notice that the flow of energy is blocked by avoidance and starts to revolve around itself. It seems that it is exactly this slow and stiff energy which gives rise to fear, and makes the breath shallow and the heart pound. All at once everything is different: What is good becomes evil, the lover becomes the enemy and harmony gives way to dismay and anger. The light dims, the joy turns sour, and instead of joy and peace, there is hurt, like troubled water running cold.
 
Culminating point
I feel like I’ve landed at a cultinating point, where running away is no longer an option. Neither sheltering myself nor any other strategy will help me escape, because life and its events inevitably invite hidden patterns and fear to show up. It’s hard to recognize the origin for the need off safeguarding. I feel trapped, it’s like being paralyzed and captured by frost. But when I let go of resistance to what is, imaginary boundaries begin to drop away. As tensions in the body dissolve into nothingness, I suddenly remember the phone message I received earlier that day. And by then I know: I’m afraid of being judged for mistakes and ignorance, actions that might cause harm to others or myself. The appearance of this thought is followed by threatening images in my mind. Because of these images, my whole body stiffens and my pelvis twists to the left, as if trying to avoid the future. But I don’t let these images overtake me. Instead, I straighten my chest and pelvis, ready to face whatever is coming. The squeezing sensation in my diaphragm and lower abdomen feel almost intolerable. Despite this misery I don’t give up but remain in purgatory without trying to change anything. As it finally disappears, all the symptoms are gone and there is a sudden clarity: I have been running away from the sense of guilt.
 
Projection
For years I felt guilty about almost anything. I thought I was free of the baggage of guilt for a long time now, but my experience is telling me it’s quite the opposite. I realize that guilt doesn’t even want to be released, because then the sense of separation and autonomy would lose their strength! In the depths of our mind, we are afraid that by disentangling ourselves from thoughts and feelings that perpetuate the separate self, we would lose our self. That’s why we tend to lean on permanence, secretly hoping that the footprints we leave behind cannot be washed away but will be there forever.
 
But what is hidden longs to become free. The mind solves the issue by projecting guilt outwards. This is how another person, the system or the community becomes an authority that we respect or resist, depending on the situation. A guilty person doesn’t realize she is trying to build a sandcastle that can collapse at any time. At the moment of collapse, guilt and fear of punishment are revealed. Again, and again, we shield ourselves by defending, fighting, or hiding, until we wake up and understand that instead of projecting, we should point the spotlight toward ourselves. For as long as I push the unwanted away, it keeps returning to me like a boomerang.  Whatever I’m doing right now, I invite more of the same into my life. But threatening situations and other people only reflect something
 that I haven’t been able to face in myself. I shield myself, I judge, I try to control and condemn others, because I’m unable to recognize the source of the projections – my own mind!
 
Calming down
The mind cannot be aware of itself and that is why I don’t even try to reach the origins of the guilt through thinking. Instead, I enjoy the clear evening and the ringing of church bells. Before long I rest in the Oneness, in the peace of our timeless being. I realize that every time I feel annoyed and respond to an acute irritation, I act on behalf of the separate self and make the separation real. Fear, threat, and guilt are unavoidable responses to this pattern.  The sense of guilt can be so powerful that it is projected into abstractions of a nameless threat hiding in the unknown.
It is hard to recognize hidden patterns because we are conditioned to ways of acting, thinking and believing that lead to the avoidance of pain and suffering. That’s why they are always present in one way or another, and like a stone thrown in the water, they create ripples to every experience.
It is midnight before I go to bed. The hiking day had many surprising turns, and it feels good to lay down to rest. I sink into the night’s embrace, and with my eyes closed I’m open to see that the reality of our shared being doesn’t cease to be when my footprints are washed away. Just before falling asleep an astonishing question appears in my mind: will my desire to hide and protect myself disappear, when my body gets realigned with the non-dual understanding? What would happen if I were brave enough to accept everything the way it is?