The Story of Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to understand the experience of another in a very visceral way. It is a capacity each person has. And yet it is a capacity that lies dormant to a great degree in most, expressed only in flashes here and there given an appropriate catalyst. For most people, empathy is a conditioned response to circumstances that their minds deem appropriate or worthy of such response. In other words, empathy is closely tied into your mind's most fundamental value systems. You are more likely to empathize with people and circumstances that mirror your own ideals than those that do not. As a result, your ability to express empathy becomes a function of how you tend to classify yourself. The limits and conditions you place on yourself translate into the selective manner in which you empathize with your environment. And so, empathy extends beyond just the capacity to understand another. It is more fundamentally a reflection of your capacity to understand yourself.  As you deepen and expand your understanding of yourself, so also does your capacity to feel empathy deepen and expand.

We are empathetic beings by nature. As children, our capacity for empathy is vast and largely unconditioned. Children are sensitive to their environments and function primarily using intuition. They have an innate ability to connect with people, creatures and objects in a far more direct way than do adults. That is because the filter of their cognitive-interpretive mind has yet to be fully lodged into place. When a three year old navigates its environment, it does so instinctively, whereas an adult is conditioned to take a much more calculated and measured approach. Morality, ethics, facts, opinions, value judgments and other means of classification that we are taught to use in order to analyze and segregate our experiences, are as of yet unavailable to the three year old. The child simply operates according to what piques its curiosity in the moment and, as a result, has a much more direct experience of the elements within its environment. Its awareness is unburdened by mental processes.

Conditioned Empathy

As an adult, you empathize as a result of your mental and emotional conditioning. You draw comparisons between the objects of your empathy and yourself and the more common ground you are able to find, the more your capacity to empathize increases. For example, you may feel more connected to someone who has experienced a circumstance of tragedy that you yourself had experienced. You may feel moved to share your experience with them because you have this sense of feeling their pain. As a result, you may feel united, or brought together, by the similarities in your circumstances. However, the sense of feeling the other person's pain is simply a projection of your imagination. Your mind, recognizing some of the similarities in circumstances, merely triggers memories of your own experience of pain or grief and projects it onto the other. On the other end, the recipient of your empathy is doing something similar. This person's mind, having drawn a similar comparison, projects his/her own experience of grief and imagines it to be yours. This mutual projection between the two parties seals the illusion of a shared experience whereas in reality there has been no such experience. The illusion becomes more apparent through the passage of time when circumstances begin to change and the things you once shared in common begin to gradually become less relevant. As the common ground between you and the other begins to shrink, so does your empathy. No longer are you able to feel the other person the way you once did. No longer are they able to feel you as they once did. As the circumstances that unified you slowly begin to fade, so does the unity. 

This mechanism of conditional empathy operates within all facets of human experience and relationships. Friendships are largely circumstantial, based on the commonalities people share. You often feel closer to friends that are going through the same experiences as you are than those that are not. Friends, who were once close in their youth, begin to drift apart when one gets married and has children while the other remains single and career driven. Marriages fall apart when the mutual interests and romantic drives that first created the sense of being united and in love, begin to fade into the mundane repetition of daily life, with each spouse finding the other increasingly incapable of satisfying their needs. Members of a community once united in a common political or religious ideology become polarized and conflicted when these ideologies or beliefs begin to change. Nations that were once faithful allies become sworn enemies when their interests begin to diverge.  

The ways in which you empathize with other organisms is also subject to this mechanism. You have a greater empathy towards more complex life-forms than towards simpler ones, since intelligence is one of the parameters by which you are taught to value yourself. The killing of dolphin evokes greater emotion than the killing of tuna, because people identify dolphins as being of a higher order of sentience, in other words "more human like" in their ability to emote. Eating horse meat is more horrifying than eating beef, because the horse is an animal associated with strength, beauty and grace - all prized virtues within the human experience. People are far more likely to be in an uproar over the government euthanizing stray dogs than rats, because they feel a greater sense of kinship with dogs. Witnessing a rabbit being hit by a car causes more distress than watching a fly being mashed against the windshield. Your empathy extends to a greater extent towards those beings with which your mind can imagine some sort of bond of identification. The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines empathy as "the imaginative projection of a subjective state onto an object so that the object appears to be infused with it". The more complex the organism, the more room your mind has for imagination 

Within society, people find it easier to feel empathy for the poor, the unfortunate, the victim than they do for the greedy, the fortunate and the exploiter. The public hero's untimely demise is met with widespread grief and vigilance whereas that of the despised dictator is marked with celebration. It is far easier to feel empathy for the misfortunes of a law-abiding citizen than it is for those of a convicted felon. The same voice that demands for freedom for the oppressed, demands for the imprisonment of the oppressor. The empathy you feel for members within society is contingent on how closely they uphold the principles on which society is based. Because, the principles of society are to a large extent your own principles. You have acquired and assimilated them over the years. Your whole sense of identity is based upon it. 

Unconditioned Empathy     

The empathy that an infant or toddler feels on the other hand is not yet subject to this mechanism and is, as a result, largely uncontrived. The child does not know the difference between a citizen and a convict, a Catholic and a Muslim, a democrat and a republican, a celebrity and a bum. The child experiences its environment spontaneously and responds with an equal spontaneity. Its mind has yet to fully develop the faculties of self-awareness. What the child experiences as "himself" is essentially different from what you identify as your Self. The child has no opinions to express, no ideologies to believe in, no facts to reference. Even its emotions are experienced more as energetic sensations and are as yet unclassified by the mind as happy, sad, angry, jealous etc. The child feels what it feels from one moment to the next. With little material with which to define itself, it experiences less of a separation from its environment. The boundary between where its own self ends and where the rest of the world begins is somewhat blurred. The result is that the child experiences itself more seamlessly in relation to its environment. The sense of ownership that most adults feel about their experiences is virtually non-existent. 

As a result, the empathy a child feels is of a more constant and consistent nature. As long as its attention is directed outwards into its environment, its natural response to everything it interacts with is one of empathy. This is why infants tend to be so liberal with their affection. Unless it feels threatened in any way, a child will smile as easily for a stranger as it would for someone familiar. Children have an innate ability to form instinctive bonds with animals and even insects that most adults would find repulsive. They are far more eager to touch, taste or otherwise interact with the world they live in. They would much rather get dirty than stay clean, engage than retreat, roll around and absorb as much as they can of the world around them than attempt to stay removed and unaffected.  All these are marks of empathy.

It is only in moments when fear or hunger strikes that the child becomes suddenly aware of itself as a needy, individual identity, and its attention shifts away from the world and onto itself. In this moment it is consumed with its own body's cravings and it becomes a separate isolated entity struggling to survive. And yet, the moment its needs are met it goes right back to immersing itself in the world again, unconcerned. 

And so even the child's empathy is not entirely unconditioned. Rather the conditions are basic and fundamental to its survival and in most cases easily met. However, as the child grows and its faculties of self-awareness develop and sophisticate, so to do the number of ways in which it chooses to identify itself. Previously, where hunger and fear were the only mechanisms by which it became aware of its own separate existence, it now begins to use its name, its gender, its family, its school, its religion, its nationality, its talents, its desires, its dislikes, its frustrations as means by which to define itself, all of which are inherited, none of which are inherent. Its capacity to lose itself or become absorbed into its environment gradually diminishes as its capacity to lose itself and become absorbed in its own mind gradually increases. Even in moments of distraction or daydreaming, it is reminded by the society that rears it, that there is greater value in concentration and focus. At a certain point, its capacity to become self-aware from time to time begins to take over until it finally becomes pathological.   

The empathy it expresses as an adult is less consistent, greatly distorted by its belief systems and for the most part contrived by a need to perpetuate its own self-image. 

Completing the Circle 

As adults many have experienced the disillusionment that results from the shattering of one's belief systems, yet few use this as an opportunity to embark on a journey of self-inquiry and investigation. The nature of life is such that no illusion can be sustained for long. Every mind-made ideology and institution must eventually collapse no matter how resilient it appears in the moment. This includes political, religious, scientific, social, moral, familial and individual ideology. No matter what you believe is true about yourself, the circumstances of your life will sooner or later bring it into question. The manner in which you choose to respond to this circumstance will determine how your understanding evolves. Most people are unable to let go of their definitions unless forced by circumstances to do so and even then most are likely to trade in one set of definitions for another, because the human mind craves and finds security in its own definitions. To live in a manner in which you use no parameters by which to define yourself is unfathomable to most people. And yet that is how each person was born. It is what comes most naturally to you.

Catalysed by the suffering which is an eventual and unavoidable aspect of any experience that the mind attempts to control, you move from one experience of life to the next growing increasingly disillusioned with the entire process. When you were younger the world seemed far more vibrant and full of possibility. Love, excitement, travel, adventure, family, friendships were the promises that spurred your journey forward. Yet as days turn into years, marriages fall apart or hold together by a thread, work becomes monotonous and stressful, friendships become dry and lacking sincerity, even religion and spirituality become a chore, you begin to question the point of it all, the reason why the whole journey happened in the first place. Far less than the capacity to empathize with another, you hardly have much empathy for yourself, so disconnected have you become from the image you have of yourself in your mind. There is an intense sense of living "someone else's life". That's because you are.

When you begin to turn the mind's attention back onto itself, you have the opportunity, to witness all the mechanisms that have been operating behind the scenes. As you watch and begin to grow familiar with each of them, you are slowly able to recognize how each mechanism, each belief structure, distorts your experience in some way and creates a separation between yourself and your experience. The process begins with some of the more overarching belief structures like religious ideology, ethnic identity, political affiliations, career ambitions, social relationships etc. With each one you gradually begin to see the ways in which you inherited and adopted it and how it plays itself out in your experience of life and in your relationships with others. One by one, as you reveal each of these beliefs as false and gradually release them from your mind's grasp, you move into the subtler and more fundamental mechanisms that continue to remain in place. These may appear in the form of your own morality, your principles and ethics, your loyalties, your close and cherished relationships. These are more difficult to recognize and trace, yet with a keen enough perception you are able to see how even these most intimate of identities are all mechanisms that you inherited during your upbringing. 

At any stage during this journey of inquiry you may feel that you have endured enough, because inquiry is not a leisurely process. It is disruptive and grossly discomforting to the mind which is accustomed to relying on the security of its own beliefs. And yet, the inquiry is not complete until there is nothing left to inquire. Drilling down into the very depths of your existence you are compelled to question even the most fundamental assumptions you made about yourself - about your identity as a man or woman, as a human, about life and about death. The inquiry process is not a constructive one, it is wholly destructive. Its only purpose is to consume each and every mechanism that you have ever used in order to define yourself. When even the most basic of definitions is found to be baseless, you are left with nothing more than a barely structured thought that "I exist". And yet, even this basic sense creates a seeming separation with your environment. The subjection of this most fundamental thought to the power of your inquiry reveals that even this most basic and primal assumption is no more than an abstraction of the mind. Free of your mind's compulsive need to qualify your experience, you are now able to experience yourself as the totality that you are rather than simply the fragment you represent. 

Compassion 

The journey of empathy has effectively come a full circle. Unfettered by your mind and its identifications, you once again experience life in a seamless and spontaneous fashion. Your attention remains naturally resting and absorbed in the moment to moment transitions of your experience. And yet you have not lost the power for abstraction, analysis and imagination. In fact, your ability to use them in a much more focused and positive manner is enhanced. You no longer turn towards your mind to provide you with a sense of self. Your Self is what you know yourself to be in each moment as the total experience of that moment. Any mechanisms you continue to use to separate the experience are simply practical skills in your repertoire, rather than actualities.    

You express empathy naturally and unconditionally through no effort on your part, but simply because to express empathy is what feels most natural to you. You are most wholly yourself and that is reason enough. Empathy unobstructed by conditions or limitations is Compassion. To feel compassion is to empathize with all of life without separation, bias or discrimination. It is only when the separation and bias within your own self has subsided that you can perceive from that same perspective. Only then can empathy can flow without restriction. Only then can the mirror reflect without distortion.

Transcending Conflict

You cannot resolve conflict; you can only rise above it. Conflict has no resolution. Nor is it meant to. Conflict is an inherent and necessary mechanism by which this Universe evolves and expands. Without conflict, change would be impossible.

Most creatures thrive on conflict. They are compelled towards it and are strengthened by it. If you witness nature at work, conflict is evident everywhere. Trees are in conflict with one another for sun and soil. The grass in your lawn is in constant conflict with the weeds that threaten to overrun them. Animals conflict with one another over territory and food. Even the elements are in perpetual conflict as water erodes rock, as the sun vaporizes the sea, as fire devours forest, as the ocean floods the land, as the ground swallows life.

Conflict is at the very basis of your body's vital functioning. The cells in your body are in conflict with one another for nutrients, neurons are in conflict with one another to transmit information to your brain, your immune system is in conflict with external agents attempting to penetrate your body as we speak. 

Even within the mechanics of physics, friction is the conflict by which these mechanics can even exist. Your arm is in conflict with the shopping bag as you carry it, your feet are in conflict with the ground as you move, your car is in conflict with the road as you accelerate, an airplane is in conflict with gravity as it ascends. Conflict is the mechanism by which movement can happen. Without conflict everything ceases to exist.

As a result, any talk about 'resolving' conflict is to misunderstand the purpose that conflict serves. Conflict is not a mistake, never a mistake. You can attempt to resolve the context in which the conflict exists, but it will just assume another context and the process perpetuates itself. For example, you may choose to end the conflict your feet have with the pavement by sitting down, but then you will experience the conflict of gravity preventing you from moving forward. You may choose to sit down instead in a moving train but then you will sense the conflict of the train rocking against the tracks.

Historically as well, human society has evolved from one context of conflict to another: from tribalism to monarchism, feudalism, imperialism, fascism, authoritarianism, communism, socialism, capitalism each with its own flavor of inherent conflict. Where socialism addresses the conflict of sharing of resources it creates the conflict of stunting individual growth, where capitalism addresses the conflict of individual expression it perpetuates the conflict of distribution of resources. Each endeavour to resolve one context of conflict gives rise to another context of conflict.

Just like cutting edge medication eradicates a disease causing virus, the same medication is also responsible for the virus's evolution and ability to mutate into a newer and more resistant strain. The resolution of one conflict creates the context for another.  A rebel may succeed in overthrowing an oppressive regime and thus ending that particular flavor of conflict it brought with it, but the new system brings with it a whole host of new challenges and new conflicts.

When you speak about resolving conflict what you are really speaking about then is changing the context in which the conflict is happening. And changing the context is necessary when the conflict has exhausted its purpose. The purpose has only been exhausted when the environment ceases to thrive from the conflict any longer.

The first few billion years of our galaxy were those of great cosmic conflict. This conflict allowed for the creation of a higher order of organization within the solar system. Once this organization was achieved in the form of our sun and the planets, the conflict was no longer necessary. The barbaric cultures of the past once thrived on conflict. Wars, scourges, invasions, conquering and pillaging were the necessary means by which the various cultures of the world made contact and assimilated. Civilization grew and thrived on the blood of the innocent, for centuries. As we entered the 20th century however, the collective consciousness of our species began to realize that physical conflict was no longer a necessary experience for our evolution as a species. Now in the 21st century, the growing distaste for this sort of conflict has rendered war and bloodshed (although it still occurs) more and more irrelevant and collectively unbeneficial. The modern world is far too inter-related and interdependent to resort to physical conflict except as a last resort. Physical conflict has served its purpose in globally connecting our species. Now, the new context of conflict has become a technological and fiscal one. 

Even within your own personal life, you will notice the context continuously changes. The conflict you experienced as a child within the playground was dropped for a higher order of conflict that you experienced as an adolescent rebelling against the world which you then traded in for the conflict of being an adult struggling to pay the mortgage. The conflict of being single and lonely gives way to the conflict of being married and in a relationship. The conflict of being a low level career nobody transforms into the pressures of being a high level power player.

As long as you continue to define yourself within the context in which the conflict is happening, you will remain caught within the dynamics of the conflict and will experience the full brunt of it. But the moment you elevate your perception, you will find that although the conflict continues to exist on one level you have the ability to gain a deeper perspective on this conflict and can remain somewhat unaffected by it.

For example, a kindergarten teacher was a child herself once. As two kids scrapping with one another approach her bawling to resolve their differences, she is only able to do so because she is not relating to them from the same level of perception that they are operating from. She is able to see through the drama and yet knows at the same time that this kind of conflict is essential for the children’s evolution. However, she herself would find no benefit in getting into a scrap with another child over which toy to play with. Her perception has transcended that level of conflict a long time ago.

Wisdom can only function from a perspective that has transcended the circumstance. As long as the perception is subject to and dictated by the circumstance, wisdom cannot operate and as a result of which no true resolution to the context of conflict can be found. When you are 19 and madly in love, you do not have the capacity to see all the ways in which you are deluding yourself. It is only when you have experienced enough of that sort of drama in your life and have no more time or energy for it anymore can you witness it from a perspective that has transcended that conflict. Thus when you are a parent and witness your own child experiencing that sort of drama, you may guide them with a little wisdom. And yet any wise parent simultaneously knows, that belittling their child for experiencing that conflict is not productive either. Since the conflict is the necessary catalyst for the child's perception to transcend the circumstance. 

If you watch the close-up dynamics of the internal combustion engine of a luxury car, it feels like a tremendously violent experience. A camera lodged within the car's mechanics captures the explosion of fuel into flame, the deafening roar of the motor, the metallic screech of the brakes, the powerful hiss of the pistons, the frenzied movement of the tires, the stench of rubber burning against the asphalt. All this is a tremendously violent conflict happening as you drive and you are aware of it. And yet, from your elevated perception, the ride is the smoothest you have ever experienced. You have accepted that the conflict on the mechanical level is a necessary experience that facilitates the experience of pleasure from the human perspective. It’s all a choice.

Transcending conflict does not make you apathetic towards it, rather it makes you more effective in your ability to address it. No kindergarten child, no matter how enthusiastic, can resolve a kindergarten conflict as effectively as the teacher can. You can only dictate the conflict, when the conflict has lost its ability to dictate you.

If you are experiencing conflict right now, allow the experience to exist. Let go of the urge to resist it, because your resistance is what keeps it in place. Take a step back from your conflict and witness it. See all the ways in which it is necessary, all the ways in which it is not. Recognize that the conflict exists only for two reasons - the first is because you are able to thrive off it, the second is because you are meant to eventually transcend it. You cannot transcend until you have finished benefiting from it, you cannot benefit from it any longer when it’s time to transcend. Your own suffering is your indication of where you fall within that spectrum. When the experience of that conflict becomes so distasteful to you, you will begin to automatically reject it. Just like your body accepts water until its thirst is satiated. If you continue to feed it water it will begin to bloat and will finally vomit it up. 

Ultimately, all human experience is an experience of conflict within one context or another. The context is ever changing but the conflict is constant. When you no longer sense the need to define yourself by any of these contexts then your perspective becomes free to transcend the experience itself.  You are no longer motivated by human drama, personal or collective, and yet have the ability to perceive it in a whole new light. Even as you continue to be a part of, and to participate in its dynamics, you are not beholden to it. Free of the need to resolve anything, you have the capacity to channel the wisdom of a higher perspective into the conflict. Just like the kindergarten teacher is able guide the resolution of the child's conflict, you are able to more effectively guide a resolution to the human conflict.  Rather than with passion, which is an effect of being caught within the drama, you are able to respond with compassion which can only result from having transcended it.

The Playground of Imagination

Close your eyes. Immerse yourself in the darkness surrounding you. Allow everything to fall away. Forget yourself, who you are, what you are doing. Gradually, fall further and further into this abyss that is everywhere. Let your thoughts become no more than echoes fading into the distance. Let your breath be the only thing guiding you deeper and deeper. Nothing exists. Everything is forgotten. Sink into the depths of this emptiness. Become aware of the silence that grows as you descend. Silence is the sound of emptiness. Allow the silence to draw you in. Allow it to envelope you. Lost in emptiness, enveloped in silence the moment becomes a timeless experience of peace. Sense it. Know it. Become familiar with it. Allow yourself to feel this peace. Now become aware that you are not separate from this peace. The darkness, the emptiness, the silence, the echoes, the descent, the breath and the peace are all one seamless experience. It is all a flux. One transforms into the other, from moment to moment to moment. Now you are the darkness, now you are the fear, now you are the shallow breath, now you are the rapid heartbeat. Now you are the echoes in the mind, now you are the silence that envelopes, now you are the emptiness that surrounds, now you are the peace which remains. Become aware of every incarnation you assume. Watch it be born, watch it live a lifetime, watch it pass away. Rest in this abyss.

Open your eyes. Allow yourself to witness the world around you without comprehending. Witness your mind's impulse to rush into defining it. Like a fond mother gently restrains an overzealous child as they approach the playground - gently, fondly, compassionately restrain your mind from engaging right away. There will be plenty of time for play. First, you must learn to see that a game is all this really is. Remain aware of the silence, aware of the emptiness, aware of the breath as it continues to guide. Even with your eyes open, continue to linger in this perspective just a little bit longer. You are the peace which remains. Without comprehending the world, see the world. What do you see? Without comprehending the world, hear the world. What do you hear? Without comprehending the world, feel the world. What do you feel? Can you see the emptiness all around you, the emptiness within everything? Can hear the silence, the silence within the sounds? Can you feel the peace existing, the peace within the chaos? Just like the mother witnesses the playground drama unfold, with all the camaraderie, intrigue, friendship and betrayal that only children are capable of, with the same undifferentiated perspective of compassion; can you also witness the events of your world - with all the triumph, tragedy, heartbreak and celebration that only we humans are capable of, with the same undifferentiated perspective of compassion?

The mind is eager to play, I know. No need to restrain it any longer. You have arrived. Be gentle but firm with it, not strict. It was born to play. And play it will. Watch it take off the moment you let go of its hand - and suddenly you are once again you - this character that is your mind's creation, its prize possession, its favorite superhero doll. Allow the mind to use its child-like imagination to create new stories and new adventures for your character to embark upon. Witness its inexhaustible creativity at weaving thread after thread, story after story, adventure after adventure into an endless tapestry of a lifetime. Even when the story takes a darker or painful twist, don't worry too much. Children at play will sometimes get hurt. A wise parent is simply a guide, not an authoritarian. Pain is often the result of irresponsible play. Allow your mind to learn the hard way - that drama breeds suffering. The more freedom and autonomy you allow it the more it will learn to play responsibly.

No matter what costume you are being dressed in. No matter what role you are being asked to play. No matter what drama you are being asked to engage in, humor the mind but don't humiliate it. Let it know that you are choosing to play along out of love, not out of necessity. It will love and respect you all the more for it. If you scoff at the naiveté of your own mind, it may learn to respect you out of fear, but it will not love you. It will find a way to rebel. When the time for play is done, the eager mind will always want to remain at the playground a bit longer. It is energetic and enthusiastic and sometimes fails to recognize that the play, for the moment, is done. Gently remind it, that it needs its rest. That tomorrow is another day, another adventure on which you, its prized protagonist, will embark. 

As it slowly begins to rest, allow it to ease into your embrace. It may recount many of the adventures of the day: About the fantastical things it did and the not so great things that made it afraid. Give it your unconditional ear; listen to its every word as if it were the last. Trusting that it is safe in your embrace, allow it to gradually drift into silence. Slowly, surely let its rhythms become a more gentle flow.

Now, the mind is quiet again. Turn your attention inward. Close your eyes. Immerse yourself, once again into the darkness surrounding you. Allow everything to simply fall away. Forget yourself.  
 

A Pilgrimage to the Past

I am sitting in the front passenger seat, as the car honks and swerves its way through the dusty and chaotic Calcutta streets. Traffic, I am told, is usually much worse. Its Good Friday today, a national holiday. The streets are nearly empty by Calcutta’s standards.  Empty, isn’t the first word that comes to my mind, while witnessing the bustle outside. It just goes to show how long I’ve been away…

The last time I was in this city was 20 years ago. Back then, Calcutta was the closest thing to what I could call home. Its where my fondest memories of childhood were made. It’s the last place I remember being innocent.  The circumstances that led to me to leave Calcutta were ones that would, in many ways, shape my quest for self-discovery over the next 20 years. Up until that time, I had had no reason to question the imperfection of the world. My life had been an effortless continuum of experience, filled with love and adventure. I had lived and laughed without any doubt: about myself, about people and about life. Yet, the fragility of one’s own perception must eventually cause it to shatter. It is one of those unavoidable inevitabilities of life…

The chauffer exhibits a zen-like focus as he steers the car within inches of vehicles, humans and livestock. Blinking, in this kind of white knuckle traffic, is a luxury few drivers can afford. Cyclists, mini-buses, taxis, scooters, pedestrians, rickshaw-wallas and bullock carts, all compete for every inch of road available. In this city you don’t just move forward, you earn your way forward.

We are on our way to St. James’s: the all-boys school I attended as a child. Memories of weekly mass at the campus church, Monday morning inspection, buying treats at the tuck shop during lunch, goofing around with friends during class and getting regularly caned for forgetting to do my homework, are as alive in my mind today as if they had happened only yesterday.

The car pulls up to the front gates of the school. They are closed. I tell the chauffer that there is a second entrance further up the road, through the cemetery, that is usually kept open. 20 years later, my mind is able to recall this little detail without effort.  

The entrance through the cemetery is open as I predicted. I breeze by the perplexed watchman, with an air of authority that makes it appear as if I actually have some business being there. I have learnt that the only way to move forward in this city is by capitalizing on the hesitation of others. I know that if I falter even for a moment, he will ask me why I am there at which point any heart-warming story of revisiting my childhood would be met with an unsympathetic smirk followed by a request to abandon the premises. So instead, I stride forward with a stern sense of urgency which communicates to him that he had better have a darn good reason to waste my time. The ploy works and I leave him behind looking a little confused. From the corner of my eye I notice him follow me for a few steps before he changes his mind and decides to resume his post instead…

Within the grounds now, I find myself immersed in an infinite sequence of déjà vu. Returning here all these years later is surreal. The school grounds are quiet and eerily empty. So is my mind. I can hear my own breathing as I take one step at a time into my past. The presence surrounding me is palpable.  The air has a sacred quality - as if I have entered some ancient and holy ground. I feel a deep sense of reverence wash over me. Only now am I aware of why I had to come here. I have come to pay homage to myself.

This journey of the last twenty years has really been a pilgrimage. It began the moment I doubted my own existence and subsequently embarked on a quest to justify its purpose. That journey took me to places in the world I craved to experience, places in my mind I didn’t know existed and places in my heart I was too afraid to acknowledge.

No pilgrimage is complete until the pilgrim returns home. It is always the journey forward, to meet our gods that we consider the most virtuous and filled with promise. But little mention is ever made of the journey home, which is often less glorious because it seems to serve no great purpose. And yet, the gods we find along the way are only figments of our minds, which keep us searching endlessly onwards. The truly divine is what you find awaits you when your path brings you back to where it first began.

As I walk through the school grounds as if in a trance I am able to see how much everything seems to change. And how little it really changes. The day I left this city, I had little idea that I would only return when my pilgrimage was complete. Standing in the great courtyard of the St. James’s school for boys, it becomes clear to me that I never really left.

The Tyranny of the Mind

*The post below is my response to a question someone had about dealing with experiences of depression and PTSD. This person has already shown great insight in recognizing that there is far greater wisdom and benefit in 'allowing' the experience rather than suppressing or fighting it. But in attempting to allow the experience they feel trapped in an apparent dichotomy of how to deliberately allow an experience to happen. After all how does one control or contrive spontaneity? I have posted my response for any of my readers who may have experienced this dilemma or simply with the tyranny they have felt from their own minds, when immersed in depression or anxiety.*

Hi _, 

This pointer of "allowing" can be a tricky one because you can misinterpret it as another technique to try and control your experience. It is important to recognize that allowing is not the opposite of repressing or identifying. It is really an attitude of surrendering control.

Try this simple exercise - become aware of the rhythm of your breathing. Watch it closely. You will notice that as soon as you become aware of your breath, its rhythm changes. Suddenly, it goes from a nice, natural rhythm to a sort of controlled artificial rhythm. No matter how natural you try to make it, as long as you are trying to control the experience of your breathing, it will seem unnatural and contrived.

The process of allowing is similar to breathing. It happens naturally. It doesn't need your active involvement in order for it to happen. But if you try and make it into some sort of objective, then it can become a mechanical and artificial process too.

Your Mind can never know how to allow. It is not built for that purpose. Its job is to identify or suppress, those are its functions. Just as it makes no sense to use a computer to vacuum a carpet, the Mind  is not equipped to allow. At best it can do a sort of pseudo-allowing, kind of like you trying to force your breath to be as natural as possible. This is where a lot of people can get stuck, but it is exhausting and ultimately unfruitful.

Realize this. Allowing is not something you can 'do', because allowing is already happening. Right now you are experiencing deep depression. Right now you are experiencing post-traumatic stress disorder. Ask yourself this question - how are you experiencing these? How could these experiences even be possible if it wasn't already being allowed?

What the pointer of 'allowing' is really pointing to is not some new technique for your mind to gain dominion over life, but rather the very intelligence of Life itself, that lies at the heart of every experience. It is pointing to that dimension of your Consciousness that exists even prior to your Mind - prior to the your thoughts, emotions or any other mental events. That Consciousness is the foundation of your whole experience. And it here that the allowing happens.

While depression can feel debilitating, it is also a great opportunity to become aware of this deeper dimension within yourself. Depression and anxiety are tremendous tools for self-discovery, because they temporarily destabilize the mind. And it is in that window of opportunity, when your mind is still scrambling to regain its bearings, that the truth of your being can become even more apparent than ever before.

This is your own inner revolution against the tyranny of the Mind. The Mind has become an institution - like say a government - built on certain beliefs, principles and motivations. And like most government institutions it thrives on power and control. Yet this power and control is only apparent it is not real. The power of any government, no matter how oppressive, depends on the people that support it or fear it. The moment the people stop feeding it, the entire structure collapses like a house of cards.

Instead, of trying to build a government that promises freedom to its citizens (this exactly what is happening when the Mind tries to make 'allowing' a practice), recognize that freedom is already inherent within each and every person's experience. Freedom is already the case, for you. It always has been. Just like you don't need any government to tell you that you are free, you don't need your Mind's permission to tell you that you are free.

Go to the source of where the true power lies. Turn to the Consciousness without which the Mind could not even operate. It is a simple state of awareness. It is silent and watchful. You are already very familiar with it. So familiar perhaps, that you do not even realize it. It is your natural state before even a thought arises, before any sense of who you are arises.

Take some time to become present. Just to simply watch your experience as it happens, without trying to get involved, without doing anything, without any agendas. Whether you are sipping a cup of tea, or brushing your teeth, or suffering some obsessive thought, or lying in a deep depressive funk. Whatever the experience is, be quietly aware of it. In doing so, you will find that your perspective has subtly shifted, from being within the Mind, to being the "Witness of your Mind". This witness position has no opinion, no judgment, no involvement. It is simply aware.

As you become more familiar with this deeper aspect of your Consciousness, you will naturally begin to see that allowing is already happening, whether you like it or not. It has always been the case. Life cannot exist without it, just like your body cannot exist without breathing. The more and more you see this, the more and more you will begin to relax in your attitude towards yourself.

Ultimately, to come to a state of allowing happens when the mind surrenders control and aligns itself with the natural flow of Consciousness. It is the establishment of a true democracy within the mind: a government that places itself at the feet, rather than at the head, of the people. Your Mind is ultimately in the service of Consciousness. Yet, this can only happen when your allegiance shifts from the authority of the mind to the freedom that is inherent within Consciousness. 

The Personality Disguise

Your personality is a scrapbook. It is an album of collective identities, arranged in a unique way which sets it apart from another's. However, apart from the unique orientation of these identities, very little else is unique about you. This may be a statement that causes some people chagrin. In today's day and age we prefer to think of ourselves as individuals, each definitively unique and markedly different than the other. We like to celebrate ourselves for that very uniqueness and we like to celebrate it in others. As a society we exalt originality and base the value of a person on their ability to "stand out" in a crowd. Effectively, the more unique you are the more you are likely to be noticed among the masses. However, this kind of uniqueness is not synonymous with the word 'original'. In fact, contrary to what you have been led to believe, very little of your personality and who you think you are is original at all. Instead, every aspect of you is an imitation, a version of something you have seen, heard, experienced or been influenced by.

Starting with your physical appearance - your genetics are derived from those before you. You "look like" different parts of other people. Your emotional being is likewise also a derivative of your genetic inheritance as well as circumstantial/cultural conditioning. As a child you witnessed the emotional expressions of those around you and learned to emote accordingly. You realized that certain emotions were considered to be more beneficial than others and adapted your behaviour to try and maximize those that were considered acceptable and learned to minimize those that weren't. A baby cries and laughs freely as it pleases because it has yet to learn the rules of emoting. Today most adults are far less likely to burst into tears on a crowded bus than to burst into laughter. Your ability to feel emotion is something entirely personal to you; however how you "think you should feel emotion" and how you actually express emotion are both a function of your conditioning. 

But perhaps, the level at which we most identify with our sense of individuality is in our thoughts. And it is at this level that we are paradoxically the most unoriginal. The vast majority of thoughts that you have on a daily basis are repetitive and imitative. Your opinions are rarely ever your own. Even if your opinion is something that stands in stark contrast to popular belief or consensus, even if it is something completely radical and unheard of, it is not something you have invented. Opinions are never invented. They are simply derived. You may have a particularly creative way of rearranging the words in a sentence, or rearranging a the sequence of thoughts in an idea and in that sense may present something that seems more fresh and original than what others have heard before. But here as well, the uniqueness of your expression lies in the creative ways you are able to redress the old. At the end of the day, we are all just regurgitating. No one ever creates anything new. But this isn't meant to be a negative statement but rather if read carefully and seen clearly into can offer great hope and optimism for our entire species. 

We live in a Universe where nothing is ever created or destroyed. Just as the laws of physics state that neither matter nor energy can ever be created nor destroyed, so too within the realm of Conscious expression, including the emotional and the mental, nothing can ever be created or destroyed. No idea can ever be destroyed no matter how evil or destructive. No ideology can ever be suppressed forever. That is one of the most beautiful things about Conscious experience. There is no limit on what you can think. Similarly, no idea can ever be created. It can only be derived. Every idea that ever existed was based on an idea before it. Language itself arose from the need to express emotion and sensation in a more effective manner. Words themselves, were derived from the previously unintelligible grunts of our primitive ancestors. So regardless of which famous person said what in history, whether it was Socrates, Einstein, Marx or Thoreau  - each one of their insights and realizations was based on a history of hundreds and thousands of years of insights and realizations before them. Similarly, their insights set the stage for the thousands of years of insights that came and are yet to come after them. It is all so intricately and beautifully connected that to try and claim some individual propriety over a thought is absolutely absurd. When you talk about intellectual property, what you are effectively claiming is ownership of a thought process or an idea as if you actually created it. But that is just as absurd as claiming ownership of land as if we have some control or dominion over the Earth. That we act in such a manner is more the result of our social contracts with one another rather than any absolute reality. In reality, you cannot own anything because truthfully none of it belongs to you. You did not create it, neither your body, nor your emotion nor your intelligence.

The very fact that we come in with nothing and leave with nothing is an indication that none of it really belongs to us. It’s kind of like a playpen at a daycare where you can come in and play with the toys, and within the game you can claim "temporary ownership" of whatever you lay your hands on, but when it’s time to go home you don't get to take any of it with you. You were only permitted to borrow it for a while.

Similarly, your personality, even your name, is simply a temporary alias, just a borrowed identity. This name that means so much to you and is your unique identifier was fished out of a rolodex of a million baby names that your parents studied over. Your personality, the words you use, the inflection in your voice, your accent, your beliefs, your ideas about yourself and others, your value systems, your morality - are all the toys in the playpen that you can claim for a while as long as you are willing to play nice. When it’s time to go home however, you don't even get to take that name with you.

This can be an immensely liberating revelation if seen with the right perspective. The very fact that you are not bound to your name, your personality, even your emotions and your body is something that has the potential to radically shift your whole perspective of life. No longer can you claim to be the victim of your circumstances, of other people's intentions, even of your own thoughts and emotions. When you realize that none of it really belongs to you, but rather you have only borrowed it for a while, just that recognition can be extremely freeing. This is particularly evident in patients who are suffering from a debilitating illness or severe pain. As long as the illness, disease or pain is seen as something that is "yours" that "you own", that defines you, it can seem insurmountable and overwhelming. But the moment it is seen instead as some borrowed experience that must be experienced for a while, then that part of you that is most essentially you, that most intimate essence, can never be touched.

Prisoners on death row have experienced this sort of disassociation from their circumstances and have reported feelings of deep peace, joy and gratitude which seem to completely contradict their circumstances. The fact of the matter is that peace is not the result of the absence of war, strife, suffering and heartache - but ironically exists in spite of them and sometimes especially within them.

But the realization of the unoriginality of this person that you think you are is vital for liberation, because it is this "person" that you are essentially becoming liberated from. And by "the person" I mean all of it: the ideas, the emotions, the appearance, the desires, the passions, the pains, and the sufferings - all of it. When you see that it is all just a costume that you don in order to participate in this great drama of life - then you have the freedom to set aside that costume if and when you choose.

This doesn't mean the costume is a shackle that needs to be discarded and done away with. In fact, this notion has been one of the greatest traps within the whole history of man's quest for spiritual realization. It has been a trait of every religion and every discipline - this denial of the flesh, of the human, in an attempt to realize the divine. And yet that very desire to do away with the costume is a shackles in itself, it is what makes it a bondage. But when you can see that the costume serves a purpose, that it is your greatest disguise and a thing of sheer genius, one that allows you to participate and express your true self at will, then it is no longer a shackle. To be truly liberated is to be able to wear and remove your costume at will.

When you can perceive this whole person that you are: your name, your physique, your drives and passions, your thoughts and beliefs as all different parts of a fabric that has been painstakingly crafted for your own enjoyment and expression then you may begin to perceive the whole experience of your life with some levity. Because a great production is all this is and is all it was ever meant to be.

The Journey of a Lifetime

Imagine you are sitting in a train, gazing out the window. This train is powering on through the vast and scenic countryside. Farm after farm passes you by; you catch a glimpse here and there of farmers hard at work in their fields. Yet, they vanish from your sight no sooner than your curiosity is aroused. The mountains in the distance stay with you for a while longer. Massive and majestic, they seem like permanent fixtures in this world of your perception. They seem to move with you. They seem reliable companions. You doze off for a while, not knowing how long. And when you wake, the mountains are gone. Your majestic companions who seemed so steadfast and reliable have vanished without a trace, like wisps of cloud over the horizon. In their place, an expanse of yellow plains as far as the eye can see, and the river that has been by your side from the moment you began your journey. This river, she will never forsake you. She has always been there, since the very beginning. And yet, an hour comes when you see her branch away, ever so slightly at first. Then further, and further. Now she is no longer parallel to your path but moves away at an angle, farther and farther. You strain to trace her with your eyes, but she fades mercilessly out of existence. Now, she too has gone. You are left with an unfamiliar terrain. Fields appear and fields pass, forests appear and forests pass. Mountains again, newer and more majestic, pass away as effortlessly as if they were a breeze. A new river appears and stays with you for a while. Waterfalls, villages, people, livestock, cities, canyons, plains and tunnels - all pass before your eyes. Each one is real only in this moment, but in the next merely a figment of your imagination.

But the whole world already exists in one moment. It is only you who are passing through it. You cannot help it. You are only a passenger on this train.

Time is the landscape through which you are traveling. It may seem, from your vantage point, that it is Time that is passing and you who are stationary. But just like the passenger on the train, you are only a passenger moving through the landscapes of time. Your body is the carriage in which you are sitting, your mind the train's engine propelling you through time. Moment after moment passes you by, you catch a glimpse here and there of humor or goodwill, but no sooner is your curiosity aroused that it vanishes from your sight. Your beliefs and your ambition loom majestically in your vision like permanent fixtures in your perception. They move with you, like reliable companions. But you awake one day to find they are gone, without a trace like wisps of cloud over the horizon. In their place, a vast empty landscape of uncertainty. At least, love will never forsake you: Love, that has been there since the moment you began your journey. But then a moment comes where it begins to branch away, ever so slightly at first and then further and further, it fades mercilessly out of your existence. You are all alone now and steeped in uncertainty. Yet the movement forward continues unceasing. Humor and goodwill appear and recede, joys and sorrows appear and pass. New beliefs and ambitions, newer and more majestic, pass away as effortlessly as if they were a breeze. New love appears and stays with you a while. Good fortune, camaraderie, regret, unhappiness, success, abundance, anger and insecurity - all pass before your eyes. Each one is real only in this moment, but in the next only a figment of your imagination.

Everything passes. Nothing remains. Only memory, but even that passes. Solidity is the appearance you have chosen to accept as your reality. But reality has no real solidity. It is the stuff of dreams, smoke and mirrors. 

As you watch time flowing past you, become aware of yourself flowing through Time. Regardless, of what passes, has already passed or is about to pass; regardless, of the love, joy, sorrow, regret, successes and failures that appear, disappear and reappear relentlessly; become aware of the Eye of Perception that is witnessing it all happen. It is your Eye. Even as the world changes, it does not change. Even as the moments pass, it does not pass. Even as your body and mind age, it does not age.

This is the world in which nothing remains, where everything appears and disappears relentlessly. Yet, the Eye of Perception, has always been present. It never appeared and can never disappear, it has no beginning nor an end. Because, it does not belong to this world. It is what has created it. 

As with everything else, you too will pass one day. Your journey from childhood to adulthood and finally old age will be complete. The vehicle of your body will no longer be of service, the engine of your mind, decommissioned. An entire lifetime of love, ambition, joy, sorrow, success, failure, abundance and regret will be nothing more than a memory, the stuff of legend, the topic of a warm dinner conversation. 

But the Eye of Perception, its journey complete, will disembark from the vehicle having arrived at its destination at last. With a deep breath and a single stride, it will return once again to that infinity of existence from where it came: that sea of possibility where all realities can simultaneously coexist; where every life it has lived is nothing more than a cherished dream.  

This is the journey of a lifetime. And You are more than what meets the Eye.