The Edge of the Amorphous

I have had this inner experience before, but never was the sight so clear and the level of what I have managed to grasp with my mind, so deep and breathtaking. I actually had the experience in May in Germany on an intense retreat with Robert Gonzales, but the realizations are still arising and penetrating my awareness.

The best way for me to describe it all would be to say that, upon exploring some feelings within myself, I suddenly perceived/saw/experienced my inner world as it is. For a brief moment at least, that is. And it was so clear and vivid that what I normally experience as my inner world truly is not my inner world, but rather a very very simplified portrait of it. My inner world (and I guess this applies to pretty much everybody on this planet) is just not like a storage place full of categories, you know, feelings here on the left, thoughts on the right, needs over there in the back and values in between, and a bit to the left. Some feelings being red and others green (or whatever), some needs intense and others less strong, with some parts of myself being beautiful and others sad and painful.

It is really just not like that at all. The inner world is completely amorphous, shapeless, with no categories at all. So, when I look inwardly and try to sense what is going on within I actually, with my old-fashioned primitively-constructed human mind, create some simple categories and try to squeeze the amorphous “content” into them, so that I can make some intellectual sense out of it and finally, not being able to communicate more subtly and directly, put it into concepts to get it across to you. Saying this is how I feel, this is what I need, this feeling is annoying and that need it beautiful… But it is actually none of that.

I guess this is why the old saints and enlightened people meant by calling it Sunyata, the great emptiness, the ultimate void. Not meaning that there is no content at all within us, but rather that there are no categories, no distinctions, no forms and shapes. Just the amorphous… I guess what they meant was that when we finally wake up, the shadows from Plato’s cave melt away just in the same way as our dreams disappear when we wake up.

Now, of course, to try to understand the amorphous inner world with our narrow dualistic minds and even to describe it…, is but a joke.

So, the more I try to sense it all, the more I feel that my awareness (hm, now, that’s a funny category just waiting there to be torn apart, doesn’t it ) is residing somewhere on the some sort of an Event Horizon; black hole of the inner world on the inside, with nothing being able to come out in it’s pure shape. Once our mind claims to have understood it, this means that it has definitely not understood it at all. And the same applies to our attempts to perceive the so-called outer universe on the outside.

Our minds struggle with categorizing and “understanding” them both, but really just juggling hopelessly with meaningless interpretations and maps.

So, I guess this means that it does not make much sense to take anything that we perceive too seriously. Because it is the definition of a heavy distortion.

Now, this sounds like a fun life to live, doesn’t it?

Something is getting stronger. But what is it?

More than a year ago I was noticing how helpless I was when trying to do some swimming alone, without my coach around. When alone in the swimming pool, I always managed to find hundreds of reasons why to not continue swimming. With the coach yelling at me from the side of the pool, everything was suddenly possible.

But then I noticed something started to change, bit by bit. When we were this June in Crete on a short holiday, on our favourite South-East part of this wonderful island, I managed to do a lot of swimming, every day, quite some distances. And jogging keeps becoming more and more easygoing, enjoyable, no struggle at all. Am I recovering? Am I waking up from my death bed? Has somebody finally replaced my batteries? Yes, indeed, I hear you asking all these questions.

And today the big victory came. After leading the first day of a conflict resolution training here in Norway with a very inspirational group of students from literally all over the world, I went for a swim in the pool and guess what: although I was totally alone in the pool and my trainer being about 1.800 km air distance away (I am not yet rich enough to drag my coach around with me, though it would be fancy, right?), I did the whole regular training, all the laps, distances, everything. On my own.

Am I hearing standing ovations? Good, good, thanks a lot, this is just the appreciation, acknowledgement and support I have been needing.

So, I guess something is getting stronger. Is it the mind? Is it the body?

Whatever it is, it’s alive.

Monica, Angelina, Brad and George

OK, finally some time to catch my breath. I am not complaining over the speed of my life in the last few weeks, but I really started to desperately need somebody press the pause button:

• first there was a one-week NVC training in Greece. I can hear you going: “Oh, bastard, I hope he is not going to complain how hard THAT was”. No, absolutely not, I am not going to complain, since it was truly fulfilling, all this swimming in the ocean of genuine connection with myself and with people around me, discovering new worlds within and devouring the beautiful environment, human as well as just simply sun, sea and Greece around. But it was intense, nevertheless.
• immediately upon our return we both dived into a week of leading trainings every day, with loads of work that needed to be done in between.
• in addition to that my blogging mate from down under, Razz and his wife Engogirl dropped by and stayed with us during that week – which meant a lot of inspirational sharing, eating and drinking (Razz is a hell of a cook so I urge you to invite them to your home). He can also teach your kids about photography, his wife will teach them mathematics and engineering, they will do gardening…, what can I say, another cool guests to have in the house.
• in the midst of it all we needed to pack again and off we flew for a week in Norway, to give a nonviolent conflict resolution training (me) and an intercultural skills training (Marjeta) in this inspirational college where we like to go so much.

Anyway, here I am, in this wet and windy Norway, just back from a long run, feeling how my system is slowly calming down and getting ready to start with the workshop tomorrow, with blissful silence and serenity of nature all around.

And in this process of slowing down I sort of remembered that I am actually writing a blog and that it has been getting pretty dusty and rusty, with me not finding time to post things regularly. Which led me to recall how the other day Razz was sharing his weird experience with the flow of visits on his blog. And than this lead me to remember another blogger Hayden, who told me that her blog got enormous amounts of visitors when she once posted a photo of Monica Bellucci. You know, the search engines thing – people searching for naked photos of Monica…

And this thought got my dirty mind going.

In a weird direction.

Toward the dark side of the Force.

And out came a plan, a vicious plan indeed.

So, let me show you some photos. Firstly may I introduce you to the gorgeous and sexy yet not naked Monica Bellucci (notice how smart the wording in this sentence is?)

And here is the photo of equally gorgeous and sexy yet not naked Angelina Jolie.

To be attentive to the female population as well, here comes a photo of the handsome and sexy yet not naked Brad Pitt (I will never understand why some women tend to deny this that he is really cool)

And, last but not least, here comes handsome and sexy yet not naked George Clooney (some of you may remember I have a special connection with him, others will understand too if they only care to dig deep into the comments in this post of mine)

So, let’s see if this shakes the rust and dust off my blog. 

And for all those innocent souls that stepped right into my diabolic trap; this is a nice personal blog, you see, so why don’t you sit back and relax, have a cup of tea, feel at home and click around a bit. You may even find it enjoyable.

Just an ordinary guy

The extent to which we tend to be concerned with our own image, trying to place ourselves and our own worth somewhere on the scale, the amount of attention and energy we dedicate to the impression management, self-promotion…, it all seems pretty ridiculous to me. There are so many other things to worry about in this world of ours.

The tiny little good news – in regards to my tiny little unimportant existence – is that, as it seems to me, lately there has been less urge or even tendency to polish my self image and worry about it at all. To a great deal of relief, because the thing used to be darn exhausting. I used to really cherish this sweet hidden idea that I am special, very special. And that the world yet needs to recognize this. I remember the first cracks on this shiny little devil started with some heavy blows on my thick head long time ago, a sort of waking-up experiences.

One that I really love to remember and still find incredibly funny happened on my first trip to India. I went there, at the age of 20, for the enlightenment and total liberation, of course. I guess thousands of people went to India with the same goal. So, I was not so very special in this regard, but I did like the thought that I would definitely be the one who will actually attain enlightenment, not like the rest of losers who came home humiliated.

So, there I was in a search of a guru. I visited many and was not satisfied (this already sounds pretty stupid, doesn’t it?) and finally learned about a wise man in a small village up north in Uttar Pradesh, where the Himalayas begin. On my first visit to the village, despite the intense search, I did not find the man. I thought this actually was a good spiritual sign, showing that the path to enlightenment was damn thorny. I loved it. I felt I was ready for any sort of sacrifices, I believed I was ready to face all the tortures needed for the liberation, with a blessed smile of Buddha on my smart face.

Next week, after gathering more info, I returned to the village and finally found him; he was a simple, kind, shiny, skinny old man, with soft eyes, white beard and soft voice. Just what I was looking for. He looked just like Ramana Maharshi and I believed this was the perfect sign. He did not make a big fuzz about himself or his teachings, but invited me to come back in the afternoon, to his home, and to meditate a bit with his friends. I learned later that he did not call anybody a disciple or a student, but just simple friends with whom he liked to meditate. Another good sign for me. He modestly asked me whether I was able to sit down on the floor and meditate for a while and was then overwhelmed with my self-promotion about how well experienced in meditation I was, how I loved to meditate and so forth.

So, I came back later that afternoon and we all sat down, about 6 or so of us, in this little meditation room. The old man lit a candle, explained the form of meditation he was inviting me to practice, and just before we closed our eyes he said that I did not need to worry about time at all since he was going to announce the end of the meditation with a bell, after 4 hours.

What??????? Four hours? Four hours of sitting in lotus, not moving, just meditating?

I did manage to maintain the enlightened smile of a Buddha, but my mind exploded. I never ever did more than 40 minutes in a row, and here I was, on bare concrete floor, with this weird man and his weird friends, to sit for four hours???

It was a 4-hour-torture, to my body as well as to my mind. I did manage to maintain my image, my dignity, my ego, but that was definitely not a meditation.

So, the horrible 4 hours passed, the little bell rung, I slowly started to stretch my burning legs, atempting to preserve my blessed smile. And the old man, with some curious sparks in his eyes and a tiny smile on his face, turned to me and said: “I apologize for being so short with time today and so we were only able to do this much. But tomorrow you are invited to come at 8 in the morning and we will do a longer and more deep meditation, I was thinking about doing an eight-hour stretch.”

This time I was ready and I did not blink: “Great, I will be delighted to come, thank you for inviting me.” I had a plan in my mind already (I had plenty of time in the past four hours to develop a plan, you see) and next morning I caught the first bus out of the village, before 6 AM and oh, boy, was I happy to be on that bus. I did save what was left of my dignity by not showing up, well, sort of, , but my self image was not idealized anymore. Reality started to knock on the door.

So, it indeed is a relief to notice, after a couple of decades, to be less burdened by my own image, not evaluating or comparing myself with others too much anymore, in other words, not taking myself too seriously.

This indeed is how I understand the concept of personal growth: not necessarily seeing chakras all over the place and remembering past lives, but acting out the role of a victim less and be fully responsible in relationships, being aware of my own very human needs, humbly being aware of my own limitations, developing genuine empathy for other people’s needs, overcoming fear of stepping into the unknown… simple things like that.

So, perhaps the fact that I don’t think anymore that I am anything special and the fact that I almost don’t spend any time in front of the mirror – perhaps this is a sign of some improvements.

Mind cleared, focus regained

The last couple of weeks were a bit hectic around me, and the last couple of days were a bit confusing in my mind. My dear two friends from Sweden were here and we were either spending time together, laughing and crying, on NVC workshops here, or running around the country to get some sun, fresh air and fun together. After they left, a ton of things needed to be talked about and handled with my wife before she left for North Ossetia for the third time this year. Or is it the fourth time already. Boy, this time really flies.

In between I was giving trainings and seminars non-stop, in and out of the country.

And, as the cream on the top, carpenter is completely redoing one of the offices and so my office is used as a storage room for the time being and looks like this:

And, of course, consequentially I had no time nor energy to write my blog.

But in the last couple of days a tension begun to start rising within my mind and weird thoughts started to circle around: “I will start losing my readers. People will get tired of checking back only to see I haven’t written anything for a couple of weeks already. I need to write a post or two. I should do it. I must do it! Otherwise my statistics will go downhill. People will abandon me. I better write something really smart and funny NOW!”

And there I was in this achieving mentality, thinking that it is all about getting somewhere, achieving some supreme goals, fight for readers, be good, be better, be the best, climb higher up the ladder… You see, not so long ago I was pretty critical about this sort of thinking.

Now, no matter how much I like to whine over constantly being exhausted from the intense interactions with people through my work as a communication trainer, team coach and a mediator, right now I can see how great it is to do this kind of work since it helps me move through traps like the one above in almost no time.

In my work certain crucial themes of life are constantly present, like the question of core personal values, existential dilemmas, innermost needs. So, being “forced” by the nature of my work to constantly face and contemplate these issues, they persistently keep bringing stuff from my life to the surface as well, literally on a daily basis, and this surely helps me to not waste too much of my life on things that I would find no meaning in. Although my dear blogging mate Razz sometimes fears I am about to go mad.

So, in the above case of my blogging dilemma the situation got cleared pretty soon; this is to say immediately upon me remembering of my core “blogging values” that lead me to start writing this blog in the first place. Instantaneously it was clear to me that these values of mine had absolutely nothing to do with achieving or becoming anything. Quite on the contrary: when I started with this blog almost a year ago, I had three clear values on my mind:

• to write what is alive in me, right here and right now. Regardless whether it is smart or not, funny or not, impressive or not, twice a day or once a month.
• to write what I believe could be of some sort of interest for anybody out there. Otherwise, why litter?
• to honestly share. Just honestly share. And NOT teach & preach.

So, when I remembered this, the urge to write something just for the sake of impressing people out there, was gone. What a relief.

Yes, sense of freedom and choice does matter a lot in my life.

But I believe by tomorrow I might get my office in order, get some sleep and get some inspiration. I can already feel something is coming up from within, wanting to be expressed.

Ubuntu – nobody is ever outside

My wife, an interculturalist, introduced me to the Ubuntu concept after she got home, entirely inspired and enthusiastic, from an international training that was led by two African interculturalists. I remember that immediately when hearing about the Ubuntu, I sensed an utter greatness in it and felt an immense respect and admiration for it.

But, on the other hand, I also felt rather distanced from it, almost completely unable to connect to it or to relate to it in any other way but rational, intellectual. I did not know why I felt this remoteness, but did not think about the matter all that much until I, a couple of days back, was awarded with the Ubuntu badge.

On the one hand I felt really honoured and happy about this award, but my confusion in regards to my perception of the Ubuntu concept came out again and got me thinking and observing. What is it that distances me, in my body and in my feelings, from this concept despite I admire it so much. Why am I having difficulties to connect with it, what is this gap made of?

I noticed that my respect for the Ubuntu spirit was mixed with feelings about my westernised mind being just too dirty and spoiled with the intoxicating ideas of the omnipotence of the individual identity, the importance of personal growth and development, all this individualistic discourses, that the abyss between me and the otherness was just too wide for me to feel the fundamental connectedness of us all. I felt I was so far away from even understanding the Ubuntu, let alone living it.

But I was still exploring this area within me and while watching Mandela’s short explanation of what the Ubuntu in life is (or used to be in the old times, at least), it finally dawned on me.

It was the deserve oriented language that made the gap, the canyon between the spirit of Ubuntu and my little self. This discourse of always operating with the idea that I have to deserve to be accepted, appreciated, loved, respected…, this cultural context of there being some universal rules I need to (and will always fail to) follow in order to deserve my needs to be met within a group of people, this paradigm was dominating the society and all my socializations throughout all my life. And I internalized it into the very fundaments of my own being and my beingness. Do I deserve to be accepted? Do I deserve to be a part of this beauty? Have I complied with all the requirement to be let in? Am I good enough? Will they find out that I am in fact not?

I see this deserve oriented language of conditioning as one of the most fundamental failures of the humanity. Resulting in being conditioned and conditioning others. If you do this and that then you may qualify to deserve my love. If you comply with this and that, then you may deserve to be let in. Distinctions. Hierarchy. Levels of importance. Inner and outer circles. Social climbing. Competing. Building up as much power over others as possible…

What I am trying to say here is that I feel, somewhere very deep and barely tangible within me, that the Ubuntu starts within us, with our perception of ourselves, our own worth and our own needs. And with the realization that it is not at all about deserving or not deserving. This language and these notions are completely irrelevant and meaningless.

Ubuntu, as I see it, is a complete absence of evaluation and deserve oriented perception of self and others. We do not have to deserve to be accepted, to be part of it all, to be taken care of. And the same is true for everybody else. Because we can not actually be separated, be not-connected. We are connected, ultimately and universally. We can not be if others are not. We are because others are. We are because we all are.

The only choice we have is to choose to continue denying it all or to choose to cease denying the obvious and fundamental. And to step in, fully.

The body is weak. And the mind is even weaker.

My body has been degenerating rapidly for the last couple of years. Not enough rest, not enough exercise, too much junk food.

I like to play with the idea that I just HAVE to work all the time and so, what can I do, poor me, sacrificing my own body to provide for others. Than after a deep breath I come to my senses and realize that it is all within my power of choice; to re-arrange my schedule, re-focus my life, take care of my needs…

And than I make the fatal decision, a statement that always begins with the word TOMORROW… Well, you know the rest of the story, don’t you?

Now, the ultimate blow for my dear ego is when I realize that I would actually be able to carry out most of my plans about how to put my body back in a healthy shape, if I had somebody bossing me into it. A trainer. A coach. A boss. A sergeant. A merciless master.

And I can witness this principle twice a week, when I go for my swimming training with my sadistic coach: this guy always manages to squeeze about six times as much out of me as I am able to do when swimming on my own. I always plan to kill him during the training hour but than feel very grateful and all of that when the thing is over.

So perhaps it is not that my body has been degenerating, but rather my mind. Hm, please do not tell anybody that I am a psychologist, a coach and all of that.

I am leaving now for another Zen seshin. Yet another chance to work on my relationship with my mind. Hm.

OK, OK, I admit, this is not me. But but but, I swim ALMOST like him, really, believe me…