WITH JANAKA
6/04
"I'm not this!"
Last night I had a dream. In the dream I had a shelf lined with wooden statues, each one intricately carved. They were displayed proudly, these statues I had so painstakingly created. And then he came. The Master. Ramana. And silently, one by one, he pushed them off, with a gentle poke of his finger, each and every one of my statues. And they fell like ducks in a shooting gallery, leaving only an empty shelf.
While no words were spoken, I knew that with each piece knocked off the shelf, the message was: "You're not this; you're not this."
What were these statues? They were all my actions fashioned into a form I wanted to hold onto: The action of fathering and turning into a father; the action of playing my flute and becoming a musician; the action of storytelling and becoming a storyteller; the action of loving and becoming a lover. How difficult it is not to become a noun, in a world of nouns. It is not that nouns are bad or that one should not use nouns, that would be silly and contrived: "Hello, I am fathering my son." However, the danger comes when one actually believes these nouns, which come with a label of definitions on the backside of what that particular noun is supposed to be by various standards.
For instance, I must keep vigilant of my mind that says, "Hey, Janaka, you are an artist, so you should be practicing for so many hours, and getting your work into galleries, and wearing these types of clothes. Or, remember, you are a devotee of Ramana and so you should be acting very holy and do not use the word I and eat only sattwic Indian food that is mixed up in an unrecognizable heap on your plate."
Nouns are nothing but garments that we wear in society to interact with each other. "Good to meet you, I am an author." Or we use them to advertise who we are on flyers or business cards. The problem is that just as some people who buy designer clothes and go around flaunting themselves, giving an impression of success and affluence perhaps, so too do we go around flaunting these definitions. Look at the bumper stickers of cars, such as, I am a proud parent of an honor student; I am a Republican, Democrat, NRA Member, etc. We become so wrapped up in these definition just like mummies. And we forget. We forget our nakedness that lies underneath any such nouns.
To come to the Truth, to that nakedness, all of our fashioned statues about who we think we are must get knocked down. (And not just about oursleves, but those we made of others whom we have defined by their actions.) If we do not then Life will do it for us. Whether we think we are parents and then having to watch our children leave us, or being a husband or wife and watching the other go off with another, or being a rich man and watching our stocks dissolve, or being a body and lying in our death bed gasping for our last breath. All forms, all nouns, all definitions are fated to be destroyed. And if they are what we think we are, then we are bound to suffer.
Dear friend, if you want to find freedom and express your Self fully, without any inhibitions, sit with eyes closed on a daily basis and think about all those definitions you and others believe you to be, and with each one, whether it is a noble one or a vile one and everything in between, see them on your life's shelf, so masterfully worked, and gently, one by one, push them off, saying: "I'm not this; I'm not this."
Until there is only an empty, naked shelf.
Hari Om
copyright 2004 Janaka Stagnaro
www.janakastagnaro.com