An Essay Inspired by the Movements - Raaya
I sit on a plane to India. There has been a mix of seats and due to this the flight attendant thinks that I have not ordered a veg meal when checking into the flight. When I ask for one she looks at the sheet in her hand and says “You have not manifested…”
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Shakila, our cook, says one day “my father expired two days ago”. I tell her “I don’t understand”. “Expired, expired”, she answers, “dead”.
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We are sitting in a Tibetan restaurant. Boaz asks the waiter how is he doing. The waiter answers “I’m happy as a mountain”.
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So much of our perceived life has to do with our cultural dictionary. The words that are provided to us by our language and country are the words that shapes our mind, our thinking, and ourself. The words that I use in my head to build the story of “I” are becoming to be the “I” that I think myself to be. In the long process of deconstructing the self, one first has to become aware of the words that one is using in her mind. After 9 days of trying to dance into fragmented Gurdjieff patterns, I realize that patterns derive not only from the frame and form, they derive even deeper from the words that defines the border.
Many years I thought that It’s the system that defines the border. It’s our society that comes up with the Taboos, our culture that brings us down, our country that legislate the rules. Disregarding some of these rules I went on with my life, not caring so much to what I dress on, which cutlery I’m using (or not using at all), and which body parts I choose to shave (or not shave) off. But still some parts of me, even if not abiding those rules, remained unchanged. and still they were framing me and bordering me to be in a certain way, to act in a certain way, to align, to conform, to obey.
And then I find, that being in a space that does not force me to do any certain thing, there’s something that still forces me to align to everybody else, to do the same as them, and if not- if not following them, then the tension in my body begins and pain arises. As if my body wants to move, calls me to the flow, but my mind is not willing to make a mistake, is not willing to do the motion unless it’s flawless. And so, the mind will freeze me standing like a soldier rather than let me try to do something in an imperfect way. Insisting that it rather be perfect or not at all. All or nothing. So it becomes nothing at all.
So if I look deep enough, eventually I find that society rules and laws are barely a suggested operation manual, that I had the choice to etch into myself. Whether this choice was conscious or not, in this moments it is my choice to perceive the manual and my choice to throw it away and construct a more suitable one for me, for the me that I am now. and then later on, maybe construct a new one, and another yet comes in place.
Is a soil really a dead and bare object, lifeless and owned? Is a land, by definition, always plagued with war? Do I have to get a perfect result regardless of the way? Does the way to the result really not matter? Is it the end result that matters rather than the path leading to it? Does the end result matter at all? Is it the end expectation that I really live in, or the way to it?
When told to stand aligned to other souls, do I have to stand at attention, bringing tension to my body?
A decade has passed since, clothed in green uniform, I was called to stand stretched and brainwashed. Ten whole years of “free” citizen life and still when called to stand in line with other path walkers I stand at attention, like a soldier that I’m long begone already not. Why all this tension?
and attention to what? What do I REALLY want to be attentive to, and what my own enforced patterns attends to me?
To be happy as a mountain, to manifest life, to understand that even when the body expires of its due date, it’s only an expiration date to the vessel. To appreciate the vessel. To understand that it carried me all the way forth, being my beaten slave, my mind’s soldier, my suffering prisoner, held by none other than me. To recognize all my selves, my prisoners. To sit and mourn with them. To sink with them deeper and deeper to sadness, if that, if that should be. To set them free. To acknowledge my body. To set it free. To let it move, even if not perfect, even if not aligned to others. To choose my attention, to release the tension, to be soft with my body as soft as I want others to be with me.
To sit like a mountain.
Patient and rooted.
To understand that all happens in due time.
To expire happily.
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These words had been inspired by a Gurdjief sacred movements retreat with Akash Dharmaraj and Carol Squire. If you find the work of getting to know your own self inflicted patterns intriguing, please do join us to Akash's next retreats:
August 11th to 16th in Portugal
(Last 3 organised by Boaz Capsouto, please check http://awakeningandtransformation.com/gurdjieff-retreats )
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