In an archetypal scene from James Joyce’s Portrait of the Artist, as a Young Man, a priest declares that history is a long march toward the revelation of God, to which the protagonist, Stephen Dedalus, replies “History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.” This most poetic line is also a most challenging one, for who really wants to free themselves from the narrative webs that entangle the psyche? Our stories may reek, but at least we imagine that we own them, that we are “somebody.”
Even “process work” on trauma often ignores the fact that whatever “caused” a particular trauma is rooted in yet another cause, and then another. We may receive support from our ancestors, but they too had ancestors, and they had ancestors, all the way back to time out of mind. The jnana traditions of India and like places tell us to “be a witness, just observe.” But we are all too easily overwhelmed by the avalanche of phenomena.
Time is “undefeated.” The sun rises again, no matter what our particular condition may be. “Time I am,” says the God of the Bhagavad Gita, as he awakens Arjuna to the fact that the outcome of the upcoming battle that he has had so much angst over is already decided. “Awakening” can happen, however, even amidst the smoke and the din. Indeed, It is documented again and again by the world’s spiritual adepts. But instead of placing attention on awakening, on being fully present, we still somehow believe that it is our task to solve the “problems of the world.” But even after Buddha, Jesus, Chaitanya, Gandhi, King, etc. the same world is still with us. There is, in fact, a certain hubris in thinking that one can “change the world,” even in thinking that one can change oneself. If the vision of such “change” is based on the same ever-repeating error, that “I” am a separate entity, different from everything and everyone else, then all efforts of improvement and change only serve to reinforce this fundamental error.
If you have heard a call, if you are reading this, please listen fully before judging. There is absolutely nothing you need to do, beyond accepting your life fully and deeply. Such acceptance becomes full engagement with whatever people and circumstances are around us.
Then, what to do becomes obvious. This process has to do with coming down from the tower of the head: opinions, judgments, separation – into the heart, where pain can be felt and ultimately alchemized into the prima materia of life. Therefore, it has nothing to do with withdrawing from life or from history. Rather, it asks for one’s full engagement with whatever is arising in this moment.
When a memory arises, or certain thoughts invade your space, you do not have to ask what they mean. Rather, you can invite them in deeply (for they too may be messages from the Beloved) while still not taking them personally. When the set is taken down at the end of the play, their dance will seem inconsequential. If we are only products of history, then we are indeed determined, but if there is a place that is forever pure and true, that has never been sullied by the stains of the world, then healing is a process of remembrance and recognition as opposed to memory and cognition.
Every thought is a prayer.
Every Feeling can re-align our rudder with the greater current.
Every action can become a work of art.
If one is willing to embrace the life one is given and connect to the all-pervading life-current instead of standing judgmentally apart from it; one’s vision can move through time and space (for every place is here, every time is now). Then, history is doing its job – provoking us to awaken through it and reconnect to its source.
