My friend Jon has had some problems recently. Enough problems that he landed in jail for five days for a parole violation. Seems he got stopped speeding (he wasn't driving)and there were a bunch of empty beer cans in the back seat of the truck. Jon did almost ten years for vehicular manslaughter after a friend died in a drunk driving accident. Sometimes John doesn't make the best decisions.
There is a Hawaiian spiritual tradition that every child born into the world is like a "bowl of light" containing the radiance of heaven. If rocks are placed in the bowl, the light of original innocence is hidden. Fear, guilt and unworthiness are some of the stones that mask our true radiance. The more rocks in our bowl and the less light we shine. Angry, nasty or irksome people have lots of rocks in their bowls, while radiant, happy and joyful people have few.
Back to Jon - sometimes I wonder about this - he's such a delightful guy, innocent and almost childlike at times. But dense...(and I mean that kindly). He's so concerned what everyone else is thinking about, or feeling about - and, like a puppy, wants to be liked so badly, that he does things without any consideration of consequence or the "bigger picture."
It isn't that he has a lot of rocks in his bowl, as much perhaps as he hasn't learned the skill of managing the rocks he does have. It's frustrating to me, because I want him to do well. But more than me wanting it, he has to want it.
The game of awareness is not about going out and getting something we don't have, or becoming someone we're not. We already "enlightened"; we have simply covered our wisdom. As Alan Cohen puts it, "We started out fine, then we got de-fined; now we must be re-fined." I like that.
So where to start with Jon - telling him that's OK and reinforcing the good decisions he does make seems like a simple place to start. Health, happiness and success are our birthright, and we each carry all we need within us to manifest all the good we seek. I believe that about me. I believe that about Jon. I believe that about us all.
So this evening after Jon ran the story of getting arrested down to me, I explained this concept and asked him what rocks were in his bowl? I asked him to just try to be conscious of some of the attitudes and beliefs that stand in the way of his becoming more conscious, more attuned to what he needs to do - and more willing to think through his choices a little bit. We'll see - I'm holding out the positive expectation that he will connect with this, even a little. Regardless, it was a helpful awareness for me to re-connect with. What does your rock situation look like?
"Your task is not to seek for love, but to find the barriers in yourself that you have built against it." (A Course in Miracles)
The Etymological Dictionary defines an iconoclast is a “breaker or destroyer of images” from the Late Greek word eikonoklastes. Later, an iconoclast was viewed as “one who attacks orthodox beliefs or institutions.” Today, iconoclasts like perceive things differently than other people - or maybe we just like to be annoying. Either way. This difference in perception plays out in our ideas, worldview and metaphysics - and in how we manage our fears and shadow self. It works well for me.
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