The World is My Mirror (12 page)

The anxious person was created very early on from inevitable unsatisfactory life events. It is far easier to think of ourselves as bad, mad or just plain faulty rather than our carers not being quite up to the job of looking after us. Our parents are like gods: all powerful and all knowing. The internal bad person becomes the villain in our production, dressed in a dark cloak and lurking in the shadows down a dark alley somewhere. But like all mental structures, it needs feeding and nurturing through suitable scripts that show it off: Vincent Price and Boris Karloff didn’t do many love stories; they were cast as monsters and mad scientists, not lovers departing on trains going in opposite directions.

An identity emerges to manage the world that was apparently created by separation. Thought becomes our world because independent objects do not exist. A world pushed outside by the mind‌/‌brain is based on the past and the ideas created by a naïve young child from way back. We only ever see our own ideas and beliefs about what we think exists, but because we are essentially split, with many voices and many objects clamouring for recognition and expression, we can believe thoughts as reality and adjust our behaviour accordingly.

This is what is meant by living in a closed loop; we are just not open to seeing without expectation and are always trying to gain something to fill the gulf left by turning our back on ourself. Of course I mean turning our back on Wholeness, not
you
the imposter who thinks s/he exists and will die. The person that emerges from a primordial state of undifferentiating and timelessness masquerading as a thing, a
me
, can be anxious, aggressive, competitive, withdrawn or anything else that makes for a good play. The relinquishing of this thing is a kind of death. It is surely amazing how the mind-made structure that entertains and plagues us in equal measure will not succumb to logic or reasoning. Although, to be fair, if an identity is created that seems to run the show, it’s no surprise there is a clinging to it. Letting go would be like having your own child dangling over a cliff with your hands firmly attached to their wrists. Who would allow themselves to release them just because some guy says he’s young and will probably bounce his way to safety? It won’t happen.

This is why perceived ‘death’ can be the driving force behind most of our thoughts and actions. To die, we think, is to lose an identity, something that has been with us right from day one. This has become so precious because it is all we think we are and all we think we have. Take that away and where am I? This is why if therapy only works with fixing this
me
it is doomed from the start. (I will talk about counselling and psychotherapy later. I’ve been on both sides in the counselling room and so offer you my thoughts on it.)

New situations and novel events when a person is operating as a contracted independent
me
are totally false. Novelty and new will be seen only when the person has packed his bags and disappeared. So-called new events such as an invite to a party or a job interview are not unique for the me. The drama within is constructing a scary story to feed this pathetic creature made from the past. Thought anticipates how the me will perform in the interview or at the party. We are sure what your interviewers or other guests will be like. The heart will beat faster weeks beforehand as a response to a thought object appearing in scene four, act three of an apparent life. When we finally pull our body to the actual interview or put our best clothes on for the party, we can be consumed by negative thoughts and be everywhere except enjoying the party or answering the job-related questions. This is precisely what I mean by fantasy and imagination. This is what a drives a separate person. This is what can cease. The drama can end. What is left is sheer entertainment. Is there a difference between entertainment and drama?

Find out!

There is only Wholeness‌—‌nothing else. The creation of personhood is Wholeness turning its back on itself and creating a structure to deal with an alien universe it has created for itself. Wholeness never leaves itself and never stops being whole. A kind of hypnosis, in the form of time, purpose and meaning, fuels the search for some kind of future glory‌—‌to be wonderful, successful and loveable.

This ignorance is all that falls away. Ignorance is ego. It is a loss that is felt at liberation, not a gain. You are left raw and naked with nothing to pull you or push you anymore. There is a relaxation and resting that cannot be described and cannot be given or worked for. The curtains of the cinema screen are drawn all the way back with nothing obscuring the screen. You can see the whole lot. The curtains were concealing the factory door whose inner workings were responsible for the drama that gripped you all your life. Once you had only the version of life the factory produced. It turns out the quality control was shit‌—‌letting things go out that belonged in the rubbish bin and not for your consumption.

The ‘me’, the individual, is the search. All the time there is trying to find something in particular it is growing and growing and growing. Audrey II has an insatiable appetite. Feed it and it will only end in tears.

A glimpse is a chink of light leaking through a faint gap in the curtains. The chink may intensify the search, allowing the me
to come up with all sorts of rubbish which explains an alteration in reality whilst reading a spiritual book or sitting in a ‘meeting with friends’. This for me was the most uncomfortable period of my entire life. Locked away in my study, watching hour after hour of videos and listening to hundreds of audio files, was like being possessed by a demon. I locked my family out of my life so as to endure the sensation of being ripped from limb to limb on my own and in total privacy.

I know I am being dramatic here, but that’s how it was for me. It was horrendous. It wasn’t nice and blissful. On the flip side, what could be called liberation or integration was hardly noticed. It was more like saying: ‘Oh, my word. This is it. Well, who’d have thought?’

Not many non-dual writings give much space for counselling and psychotherapy, and so I can sense the advaita police polishing their handcuffs as I start to write. I can see why. Therapy tends to be all about an individual discovering something, understanding their past and moving on in life.

I want to look at therapy as the breaking through of honesty and the falling away of knowing and certainty. I have had various forms of therapy over the last ten years or so and I studied the rationale of therapies when I was exploring psychology with The Open University.

In my experience it is one thing to be knowledgeable about different kinds of therapy and quite another to admit one’s own vulnerability. You realise and accept you are not coping very well, and find yourself sitting next to a stranger who you think might be able to fix you. You look around at the certificates on the wall and the Kleenex on the table‌—‌scary stuff. I’ll tell you this much, though: if you get this far you have done well, regardless of the final outcome.

I can remember picking up the phone and making an appointment, and, my word, there was some activity in my chest area before my call was answered. It’s weird because when I found myself sitting there in the room with a ‘professional’ I felt like a fraud: I was fine really; I had made a mistake. For me, there was also a feeling I had to produce something; I had to show the therapist the thing she could help me with.

After a period of silence where there was a lot of selection and internal rehearsal, my mouth opened and I spoke. My first words were: “I am so unhappy.” Not that ground-breaking, I know, but for me that was the first piece of real gut-reaching honesty I had ever verbalised in my entire life.

The weeks rolled by and I talked and I talked. A valve had been opened and I was talking about things that escaped the internal censor that had worked incredibly well in the past. This isn’t the book to go into much detail about the revelations in therapy. However, the point of this chapter is the link with non-duality, and it is simply this‌—‌honesty.

Real honesty is an absence, an absence of pretending and bluffing. It is admitting you are not alright and you are not managing. For me, the input from the therapist was beside the point; it was the staring at some demon squarely in the face and not backing down that had the real power.

To me this was
The Gunfight at the Non-Dual Corral
. It was years later when non-duality raised its head that I faced myself again‌—‌the rematch if you like. I am sure it was honesty that was operating on that November day outside the supermarket: I admitted to myself, I did not know what I was looking at or what was going on. There was only total mystery.

Honesty, to me, is a letting go of certainty and knowing what something is. Honesty is saying you don’t understand when someone is trying to describe something technical to you. Dishonesty is falsely nodding your head when someone is showing you how to use the latest software or explaining some scientific theory. It is the perfection trap opening up ready to swallow you if you own up to uncertainty.

The paradox is that uncertainty is liberating; thinking you know what anything is means bondage and suffering. Knowledge can be such a bind and a barrier to the simple joys in life, like enjoying another’s company. In not knowing, a conversation with someone is truly amazing because you no longer know what is happening. Of course you never did; you just thought you did.

Honesty, for me, is another word for Wholeness and timelessness. In honesty you admit that no recognisable objects appear in your absence‌—‌not a thought, not an apple, not a pyramid and not another person. An object cannot be separate from experiencing or aliveness. An object is the formless in form, timelessness as an idea of time. They define each other and appear together‌—‌not apart. You cannot envisage a mountain without a valley or left without right. There simply is what there is. Honesty is recognising the mind as one hell of an entertainer who can do drama, horror, love stories and comedy.

Throw your television away. Noticing the bullshit that used to pass as reality will provide all the entertainment you will ever need. Listening to a friend pour out their heart about a partner’s infidelity may still activate the customary, ‘Oh, how dreadful. What a selfish bastard!’ But at the same time there is an absolute knowing that boyfriends appear in dreams. Sometimes they are faithful, sometimes they feel the urge to play hide the salami with anyone who shows the slightest bit of interest.

The awesome power of mind as a dot-to-dot artist is seen for what it is‌—‌a story maker. In a way you acquire new skills of playing along so as to provide credibility to your friend’s awful life. It would be totally inappropriate to trot out some non-dual statement that “all there is is Wholeness, so get over it!”

So therapy stopped the lies; it didn’t fix Richard Bates. Richard Bates was rumbled and dissolved. He never felt better about himself: he reached out to ‘daddy’ and was never seen again.

I hope the non-dual purists and law enforcement will let me off with a warning for mentioning therapy. I’ll settle for a clip across the ear. Sorry!

Before I move on to something else, there is one more thing I want to mention about therapy, and this arose only in the last twelve months.

I enrolled on a counselling course at my local college and thought I might give it a go. I did have reservations, especially after the non-dual stuff, but I went anyway. I was already familiar with the theory side of things and found myself helping my fellow students grasp therapeutic concepts and paradigms. But to be honest, I just couldn’t stomach the notion of therapy to help a person anymore. That rubbish had passed its sell-by-date. But the real nail in the coffin was having to endure an hour of personal development at the end of class to get in touch with our core self and develop our empathic skills both to ourselves and our class mates. It was painful. You can never go back after liberation: the show is over. One good thing, though‌—‌I never read it in a book. I saw it for myself.

The spontaneous recognition of Wholeness, timelessness and simple being‌—‌what I have referred to elsewhere as ‘non-duality’‌—‌did what no therapy could ever have done: it got rid of
me
. All attempts at fixing and soul-searching just stop without permission. There is nothing there that needs changing or improving. Improvement is relevant only for the imposter who masquerades as an independent thing. That which appeared as a negotiator and peace maker for a pseudo self and a pseudo world dissolves. It is no longer needed. The search for specialness under the guise of enlightenment is abandoned. The motivation, the drive for something better in the future, fuelled by a false sense of selfhood, splutters, chugs, hops and finally runs out of gas. You disembark from your vehicle and walk on your own. No more pulling levers or pressing pedals; there is only the self-propulsion of eternity itself.

There is nothing to work with anymore. Like a potter who has run out of clay; shaping fresh air becomes a silly and pointless exercise. At some level there is a recognition that the idealised self was like a vase with the wobbles on the potter’s wheel; left like this and it becomes all contorted and twisted‌—‌ugly!