Brisbane – March 2008

Road rage is a great example of energies sparking off each other, but there are smaller rages happening in our households all of the time.
What is an argument if it is not a swapping of comments triggered by action/reaction, button pushing/reacting to each other’s energies?

Energies attract each other like magnetic poles.

I have come to accept that ‘the other’ is my mirror.

No matter how calm I may appear to me, no matter how my lips may smile, my energy field bounces off yours. For example, when you annoy me, it is because something in you triggers something in me that is ‘about’ me. And, so, unless I can stay energetically neutral and in the present-moment, I spike – I react, usually negatively – and you and I are locked in a tango that is all too familiar.

Many a time, I have found myself in the aftermath of a present-moment that should have been inconsequential but did not end well at all. Why not?

My voice was calm.

I was calm.

My words were not inflammatory and yet there was a blow-up.

One minute we were just talking and the next there are doors slamming.

Our energy field betrays us time and time again. There is nothing our energy field can do about it. Although we can influence other people up to a point, only IF the person is open to the idea in the first place, as anyone’s daughter, as anyone’s girlfriend or partner, we already know that we cannot, not truly, alter anyone else’s take on life. We can only try to adjust our own and remember that likes attract likes.

The only way to attempt a permanent shift is by checking that we are ‘in the moment’ particularly when interacting with a ‘difficult person or in a stressful moment.

We need to aim for being in the moment ALL OF THE TIME and flow through the other’s negativity like the bow of a galleon ploughs through the water [or let it flow over us like water off a duck’s back] but the shift will only happen when we are aware that our heart energy is present even at the loggerheads moment, not by feeling victimised, not by shrugging the other off, thereby setting up the next round.

Ironically, being in the moment means not reacting to an unpleasant moment of which the present moment reminds us. Let’s not drink Today out of yesterday’s cup.

We are back to the need of being in the present moment, of not allowing our energy field to spike, of not being confronting. All we need is to practice being in the present moment. We need to flow through it, in neutral, instead of opposing it – instead of hunkering down.

We only need to practice observing our reactions. Not letting spikes of energy, excitement, apprehension, adrenaline, resentment or whatever taint the moment. The moment we spike, we ‘touch’ energetically.

Whatever we ‘touch’ sticks to us, just like the invisible germs that stick to our hands when we do not wash them carefully. Whatever sticks to us is what we have to deal with sooner or later, again and again. Sometimes we end up with a bad case of gastroenteritis. Sometimes we end up with yet another argument and having to deal with its aftermath. Sometimes we end up with one argument too many. Sometimes we repeatedly mistreat our body in response to the dislike we have of ourselves.  Sometimes we end up with a nervous breakdown, a cancer or a heart attack.

Our connection to all others is palpable when we catch a cold from ‘someone’ at the office. It is so easy to accept that strangers sue strangers over passive smoking and that we depend on everyone washing their hands before they prepare our food.

And when a killer disease like tuberculosis or a flu pandemic make the headlines, even if countries far away, we pay attention. The HIV virus has taught us that we are all connected, even if worlds apart, but we drop the connection the minute we delude ourselves into thinking that the skin that keeps us all wrapped up and ‘pleasant’ to look at also makes us a truly individual being, an island of self-realization.

According to Paul Brunton in his book What Is Karma, “The esoteric interpretation of karma recognizes that a wholly isolated individual is only a figment of our imagination, that each individual’s life is intertwined with all of humanity’s life through ever-expanding circles of local, national, continental and finally planetary extent; that each thought is influenced by the world’s predominant mental atmosphere; and that each action is unconsciously accomplished with the cooperation of the predominant and powerful suggestion given by humanity’s general activity.”   He adds, “the consequences of what each of us thinks and does flows like a tributary into the larger river of society and there mingles with waters from innumerable other sources […] That is to say *I*, an individual, share in the karma generated by all others, whilst they share in mine.” [1]                              Not unlike stormwater out of a pipe, really. Sure, we are all connected.

One afternoon, as we watched a rainstorm drown the coastline from inside the shelter of a beach cafe, Myahr, my partner, pointed at the sea right in front of us. “Look at that!” she exclaimed. “One minute that sea is blue, dark blue even, and the next … look! It’s like all polluted.” She was right. The waves coming in had actually become brown. Their sparkling white crests had become dingy. “Stormwater from the drains on the other side,” interrupted the waitress, as she pointed to a rocky outcrop off to the right. Myahr and I looked at each over our glass of perfect dry white wine. “Look how it’s spreading out seawards from waves closest to the shore.”

Sure enough, over a matter of minutes, brown water had bled into an ever-expanding area of the sea. “Ugly. Very nasty,” is all I could reply, mesmerized by the graphic illustration of what karmic ‘pollution’ might look like in our energy field.

The following day, I went looking for the stormwater pipes near the outcrop and, sure enough, though the rain had long stopped, tannin-coloured water was still meandering through runnels it had cut into the sand on its way to the sea. By then, though, the ocean had processed it all and was back to its normal colours – varied hues of blue and green. Like the ocean, our ego-persona appears to be managing well on the surface. It absorbs. It hides. It deals – up to a certain point. But our ego-personas have great limitations. They only rely on past memories. The past is static and memory is fallible.

Should you now feel ready for a charming, cute and quaint DVD through which to pit your understanding of soul vs ego, spiking vs being in the moment and separation vs non-separation, I encourage you to view Ratatouille, directed by Brad Bird, Jan Pinkava. It has all the right ingredients – great verbal and visual wit, a vibrant 3D animation and an unlikely but adorable main character, Remy, the rat.                                                                                  All films can be deconstructed from a spiritual perspective by those of us who enjoy that extra layer but most, like Brave One, starring Jodie Foster, considered ‘good’ in spite of their violence, showcase the dark, mechanical side of the universal ego-persona, whilst Ratatouille is simply delightful.

Copyright by C.C. Saint-Clair, 2008

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1. P. Brunton (1998), What Is Karma? Larson Publications, Burdett, NY, p.25.

 

P.S. By day, a teacher of Senior English and French in Brisbane, Australia, and, by night, first a writer of novels and now an amateur writer of spiritual material, I am on a quest of sorts – I am searching for a connection to my soul, right here, right now. Admittedly, I have an ulterior motive – quite a strong one at that: I am trying to edit some karma out of my energy field by altering its properties, by altering my emotions and therefore many of my thoughts.  This from me, who a couple of years ago thought about my soul as often as the molecular composition of my body, which was never. Weird, hey? 😊