Monday, November 12, 2007

Ramayana and Self

The golden deer flits by and you cannot help but be enticed. No longer are you satisfied with where you sit, and the light of the jewels you only just held in your hands has been captured by the passing fancy. You must have it back! Of course this is a moment we have all experienced and all struggle with. We do not desire things before we know of them, but once that “gazelle… of gold splashed with silver, its flanks speckled as if with jeweled moons” (1031) prances by, our thirst for more or else cries out. “As the Tao Te Ching says, ‘The truth waits for eyes unclouded by longing’” (147). It is a difficult task of letting go of our desires, of belief that we require external stimulation, that moves us beyond this grasping. Daas compares this awareness to a leaf drifting through the mind: “If you are standing by a river and a leaf floats by, you have your choice of following the leaf with your eye or keeping your attention fixed in front of you” (148). This takes years of practice just to learn to let things float by.

You must learn to know yourself in new ways. “Exploring our identity, though, can be scary (just as Swallow fears) as we enter into a world of newness” (Hannah Chesser). Even if we cannot “imagine so exquisite a creature to be dangerous [or] that it [is] other than a real gazelle” (1031), we must somehow try to see beyond. It is a kind of faith, though I do not like the idea of blind faith, and we must brave the dark unknown. Without darkness, light cannot manifest.



This form of learning of and deepening the self is a gradual though not always gentle process. Ho’s teaching of Swallow reminds me of the way that my knowledge of myself grows, the way the he “seemed eager to draw out her response” and “[impart] to her his thoughts rather than [instruct] her” (1017). We all have it, whatever it is, only if we can learn to lead it out. Michael Meade, a leader of the men’s movement, speaks about education and what it is to have genius. He condemns contemporary standardized education for trying to pound students into a frame, discouraging the discovery of each individual’s unique genius. It is the genius loci of the individual, a spirit that is unique and essential and that animates all of us. The task of education should be to lead it out. This type of individual instruction facilitates self-awareness and self-knowing. If we are pounded into a mold, then we seek anything shiny that flits out of reach, anything that could possibly differentiate us from others. If we know ourselves, then we are able to let “the leaf [float] out of [our] line of vision.” We are aware that soon “another leaf enters… and floats by” (148).

(The generative lotus flower. One such bloom rests in the Brahma's naval, from which other God's were born.)

Charlotte wrote about what it is to see and respect others as people who do not necessarily share with her many beliefs and perspectives she previously took for granted. It is true that part of knowing others is knowing one’s self, for “self-awareness… is the foundation for the rest” (64). It is difficult to respect others if we do not respect ourselves. As the ever sagacious Goleman tells us, “If a person is oblivious to his own feelings, he will also be tuned out to how others feel” (64). At some time or another we all must learn “to accept people’s reasons for having certain beliefs without questioning them as part of respecting our differences” (Charlotte Beall).

(I wonder how Brahma reconciled his disparate qualities - or heads.)
In seeing what is foreign to us, we gain valuable insight into what and who we are. “If you must torture me, so be it,” says Sita, “but I cannot change my nature and my deep feelings” (1046). And we cannot change the nature or deep feelings of others either. I want to continue to improve my ability to let others be. I often judge people based on my false preconceptions, and just as often I find myself later wishing I hadn’t. I have rarely (if ever) met anyone who remained as empty and impersonal as people sometimes seem upon first acquaintance. By expanding my compassion – especially through practicing self-love and unconditional love of others – I can learn to remain open and warm loving to others because of their differences and because of the unity we can find in these differences.