To: K-list
Recieved: 2000/11/24 14:50
Subject: [K-list] Delusion or 'taken out of play'
From: Wim Borsboom
On 2000/11/24 14:50, Wim Borsboom posted thus to the K-list:
Hi every one,
Gloria, thanks for the Nitin Trasi connection.
http://personal.vsnl.com/ntrasi
You quoted Nitin Trasi from a post dated 24 Dec '99 probably from a different list:
> The point is that there is a delusion -
> namely that there is a `one' who is the `doer.'
> Once the delusion has set in,
> since all subsequent activities
> are seen as `done' `by' that `one,'
> the delusion becomes self-perpetuating.
> The only way out of the delusion seems to be
> through the understanding of the situation<<<
I like to use the words 'analysing the dynamics of delusion'.
Etymologically the word 'delusion' comes from 'de' (Latin) ='away from' and 'ludo'(Latin)='play'.
'Delusion' thus means 'taken out of play' or 'this play is interrupted or disturbed.'
Michelle is a 30 year old live-in client of mine. K. list ppl. know about her, I have written about her before. Her life is controlled, you could say, by a condition that lies in that confusing zone between 'Borderline Personality or Identity Disorder' and 'Dissociative Identity Disorder' (Multiple Personalities).
Her little boy (almost 3 years old) lives with us on average 2 days a week.
Michelle's reintegration has just gone into a new stage as she is seeing how an *undisturbed* human being experiences that 'life is play'. That undisturbed human being is her own son (OK, he is sometimes disturbed, like the rest of us.)
Instead of playing the 'game' of life, instead playing 'roll playing games' she now sees that is possible to just live, to have a life and not to 'make a life', not having to make a living. The game of life - with its dooms and victories, its winners and victims, its rules and expectations and prescribed or expected behaviours - behaviour and attitudes to regain control or have a semblance of control by attempting to control it or being controlled by it.
She is starting to realize and recognize her own undisturbed being in the undisturbed play of her child.
With 'undisturbed I mean nothing more than 'not disturbed or interrupted while playing'.
She is noticing in her child that while playing, he is relaxed, dynamic, free, harmonious and happy, seemingly unaware of external dynamics, as he is wrapped up in the dynamics of his free flowing activities. There is imagination, inventiveness, vivacity, clarity, rest and movement in that play. The player and the played are one. (We had to get him the appropriate toys and tools for that though :-)
She also notices that the more she does not disturb those elements in her child by not wanting or needing to be involved ("I'll fix you up"), that his inner and outer being are kept together - whole - not separated out. Of course he is also reintegrating, just like his mommy, recovering his ability to play again, unencumbered. He also needed a rebuild... from the inside out, just like his mommy. He is also learning not to be picked up and fixed by his mom, to be cumbersome and needy or just a plain "pain in the ass". ("Mom can you help me?")
A few weeks ago, at a garage sale (her nana and granddaddy role), Michelle discovered two small 'Plaster of Paris' plaques with the images of angels intricately and smoothly carved out. "So youthful," she said, "playful and gracious at the same time, look at those facial expressions!... Except they have the wrong colour and could do with a paintjob..." She would clean them up...: "Just watch me Wim and wait till I am done with them." (taking on the role of her own mother.)
"Omigosh!" I thought, but who am I to interfere. I knew she was going to learn from this..., I also knew we were going to lose those wonderful little plaster angels, sacrificing themselves to the greater good... Michelle's recovery.
She worked on them with that new paint remover 'Goof Off'. She washed them with water and rubbed them with tooth brushes into the wee hours of the morning and after two days the job was done, hardly an angelic feature left.
"Don't worry Wim, I can get those facial expressions back with a pen knife, I can restore those angelic smiles again. I am good at that."
Those two angelic faces now looked as disappointed as Michelle's own face, except that she became sadder and miserabiler herself..., she did not get out of bed for a whole day... The two plasterly white angelic remains are still resting in a corner of her room. (A sacrifice well done, but what would the guy at the Antique Road Show say...?)
I know that Michelle in a few years will tell this story to her son (Liam is his name) with a lot of inner knowledge, pride and self appreciation, and both of them will have some hearty laughs about it.
Liam... whom she tried to do such a good job on. For two and a half years, she "fixed" him, fiddling and fussing and wiping and rubbing, whipping him into shape... just like Michelle's own mom had done to Michelle, but her mom was more successful (?). Michelle's mom was good with a pen knife as well, she would fix Michelle up until all her artsy (but artificial) features would have replaced her originality.
The doer and the done to... well done that is, no play in that..
Now when Liam is playing, Michelle just quietly walks by, not commenting. Hardly responding to some new words he picked up at daycare. Words that to Liam mean nothing in themselves yet, until responded to and treated as real, thus taking on power, words like "you turkey", and "rascal" and "Don't talk back to me" and "Monsters will bite you" and "I don't like liver" and "I hate you" and "I'll spank you"....
Ah, Michelle not having to "yes" to "no" and "no" to "yes". Not practicing reactive and recalcitrant behaviour. My mom used to say, in Dutch of course, "Je bent weer 'ns lekker in de contramine" (you are recalcitrant again)
We actually teach children reactivenes and resistance, obstructive and argumentative behaviour. They do not come with it at birth. We teach it to them and then we practice it until they've got it down pat and then we comment that they should not be so obstructive, resistant, objectionate, argumentative etc...,
'Homo ludens', let us not interrupt that playful being, disturb the human divine play.
The deluded person is what you get when you do.
Do you remember those situations of unencumbered play yourself? Maybe yes, maybe no.
Quite likely not very many instances. One normally does not remember those harmonious moments oneself, one more often remembers those idyllic scenes about others. Does that mean that you did not have them? Yes but they most likely did not get registered in your brain as there was no need for that, there was no danger, play is an innate and direct state, no doer/doing/done. Could that be the reason why so many people have few memories of that early period in their life.
In some recent posts some people write as though being a Ramana is so special, so holy, so rare. All this talk about yoga, spirituality, advaita, meditation, ancient scriptures move this 'being oneself' so much into a holy or sacred environment. We need to de-sacralize it, de-mythologize, de-yoganize, un-harden it, ease it. Retrieval of our original being can happen easily at home in our day to day relationships and seeming encumbrances, when we are retrieving spontaneity, naiveté, innocence.
Being a Ramana is the easiest thing there is. It is no sweat, no pedestal needed, no reverence. Being the way one 'usually' is, that is the hard work, the pedestal stuff, the soapbox, making sure not to get toppled. I admire the hard work people put into so much delusion (un-play), their tiresome, constant and tireless(?) maintenance of trying to be what you are supposed to be.
Not trying to play is hard work. I have it easy, the Ramanas have it easy, we can all have it easy. Sadhana is an easy job, you can do it less and less.
The less I did to maintain my old habituations the easier it became. To be unconditional is so easy, why don't people get it, what are they waiting for.
Are we just conditioned to wait, to be waited upon, to wait on others, to wait for others.
It is actually a matter of just saying all the while, to whatever arises: "OK!" with a light and happy voice.
Wendy wrote:
> In peace and blessings of light gratitude,
I though that was cute and just right...
Then she corrected what she had just mailed off:
> In peace and blessings of light gratitude,
> was supposed to read
> "In peace and blessings of light and gratitude, :-)
Still nice Wendy, but keep it light!
OK!
Love,
Wim
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