Polishing the mirror: how we can see ourselves more clearly

1.41: “As the patterning of consciousness subsides, a transparent way of seeing, called coalescence, saturates consciousness; like a jewel, it reflects equally whatever lies before it – whether subject, object, or act of perceiving.”
2.4 “Not seeing things as they are is the field where other causes of suffering germinate, whether dormant, activated, intercepted or weakened.”
The Wisdom of Yoga, Stephen Cope.

“Yoga is the process of deconstructing all of the barriers we may have erected that prevent us from having an authentic connection with ourselves and the world”. In her introduction to Yoga Body, Mind and Spirit, Donna Farhi offers this definition of yoga.
I have heard it recommended on several occasions that words should carry warnings, and although it may sound absurd that the utterance of some words might be attached to a hazard sign, have an age restriction or even require a license, if one considers the damage that can be inflicted with a word, it is reasonable to suppose that they should be handled with considerable caution. We speak often of a language barrier between people who do not share a common language. Language was initially created as a means of communication with which to overcome barriers, to exchange information and share experience. As a survival tool, it was one of the primary facilitators of progress. However, societal development providing a full reflection of humankind and its foibles, we can see how this valuable commodity has fallen victim to our misperception and is commonly used both consciously and unconsciously as an implement of power, oppression and confinement – both of others and of the self.
That which separates countries, regions, generations, social brackets and religions is largely the language we use. Human instinct dictates that a collective cements an identity, and the most efficient and effective way to establish exclusivity is by establishing lingo. This process, although it provides the group with ostensible sanctuary, is also a process of alienation, serving to cleave from the external environment. Similarly, as individuals we attribute labels to ourselves, compelled by the need to forge a palpable boundary between us and what we perceive to be external to us: I might find comfort in saying, “I have red hair and green eyes, I like toast, I dislike public speaking” and so on until I have constructed a pleasing amalgamation of labels that can be recognised as Me. It is this fragile and ever-changing identity in which I take refuge as I haul it through life as proof that I am different and unique. In light of this it is interesting to consider that although it is perfectly possible to survive without an eye, a kidney, a lung or a hand, if there were no longer trees on this planet, then “I” would not be able to breathe and would perish in seconds. This begs the question of which one is more Me: my green eyes, without which I could happily live, or the tree outside the window, without which I could not survive? Or more pertinently – where do I end and the trees begin? So it becomes apparent that we cannot truly rely on the signifier “I” as meaningful when the signified is so open to interpretation.
Stephen Cope states that, “The ordinary reality, in which people live, is an elaborate construction based on subtle but important errors in perception ”. Language exists as a microcosm of this elaborate construction which is asserted to be our reality. One theory is that both culture and language are in effect abstract prisons that we have erected inside our minds in maintaining the illusion of separateness from the world around us. In order for consciousness to evolve we must break down the doors and reach out to what lies beyond our own self-inflicted confines. On a molecular level there is very little separating you or me from the desk we are sitting at, and in fact if you lay your hand on the desk, there is nothing physically separating you at all. You are a continuation of it, and it would be possible to see with a microscope that there is not a place where you end and the desk begins. What lies between you and the desk is mainly language. However, I recommend that instead of seeing language and culture as barriers to authenticity, we regard them as stepping stones to a greater consciousness; as the means rather than the end.
The Bhagavad Ghita describes the reality of sameness: “He sees himself in the heart of all beings and he sees all beings in his heart. This is the vision of the Yogi of harmony, a vision which is ever one.” This can be interpreted with particular reference to Patanjali’s Sutra 1.41. Patanjali maintains that when we remove all concepts and reactions from around an object and concentrate on it fully, we can see it as it really is, and realise sameness with the object whereby the subject-object relationship ceases to be. The perceiver, the signifier and the signified are merged at their source. Eckhart Tolle in his book The Power of Now warns against over-identification with words for the very reason that our reactions to them can cloud our perceptions so easily. He recommends that we use words more as signposts to lead us to a greater understanding of what is signified; due to our nature, we have the propensity to use words as crutches to support our preconceptions and uphold the comfortable structure which alleviates the responsibility to broaden perspective and step out of our comfort zone.
Let us take for example the word “God”; a word so highly charged in collective consciousness with history, love, hate, conflict and confusion that most find they have some kind of emotional reaction to their concept of God. Until very recently, my own personal reaction to this word was of disinterest bordering on aversion. Having grown up in an atheist family who nevertheless had very strong humanist beliefs I felt that God was a security blanket for people who didn’t want to take responsibility for themselves, and in my mind I was unable to separate the concept of God from dogma or from the violence being committed worldwide in the name of religion, and could not understand any intelligent person who believed in the existence of such a possibility. I firmly believed that God was for other people, and it was not until I began to read more about yoga philosophy, having already been practicing yoga for ten years, that I began to open to new ways of thinking.
During the period when the seeds of new possibilities regarding spirituality were germinating, I embarked on my RYS 200 course with World Conscious Yoga Family at Anand Prakash Ashram in RIshikesh, India. My teacher, Chetana Panwar, possessed of erudition, intuition and a talent for communication encouraged many philosophical debates about spirituality, religion, faith and God. The Hindu archetypes were demystified by her to be revealed as representative of divine energies, of aspects of consciousness rather than the thundering, gallivanting, rather kitsch gods and goddesses as they had previously appeared to me. Similarly it became apparent that all religions had one common goal – unity; the well-known adage “The paths are many, but the truth is one” finally resonated with me on a deeper level. I began to be able to recognize that the place I sought in my meditation practice, the place of stillness, timelessness and truth, the Source - could bear the name of God. I finally opened to the possibility that the universal energy source in which I believed could carry this name and retain the purity of the concept. On inspection, my previously formed ideas proved to be fabricated from a pile of assumptions and erroneous beliefs, designed to emphasise my disassociation from organised religion. Sometimes it can be difficult to separate one’s beliefs surrounding God from one’s identity, and to admit fallibility in this area would be to shake the foundations of the perceived relationship with the world.
I have begun to think of the word ”God” as similar to the Titanic; a great vessel filled with riches which, under the force of so much pressure, sank to the bottom of the ocean some years ago, and over time has been accumulating all manner of algae, barnacles and debris which prevent the onlooker from recognising its original form. In a similar way, many of the words that we use suffer much misuse and are attached to so much pain, longing, despair and manipulation that these emotional attachments begin to act as an obstacle standing in the way of the original object and the word itself becomes an object distinct from its meaning. It may be seen that, as our bodies automatically follow the path of least resistance in our asana practice, so our minds also do in relation to objects. However, the human mind experiences great difficulty in conceiving of immanence beyond space and time; The Bhagavad Ghita endeavours to convey the full power and magnitude of all consciousness displayed to Arjuna where it reads “If the light of a thousand suns suddenly arose in the sky, that splendour might be compared to the radiance of the Supreme Spirit”. Although this is a powerful image, we ultimately find that the words merely bind us to our intellect and limited imagination and serve as a reminder that the human mind cannot comprehend that which is larger than the human mind. Patanjali speaks of an experience beyond intellect, in the realm of the spirit.
In Sutra 2.4 Patanjali lists avidya, or not seeing things as they really are, as the root of all suffering. If we examine the cycle of aversion and attachment which we have seen arise especially when our notions of objects are jeopardised, then this seems to be the case. Stephen Cope, in his book “The Wisdom of Yoga” alludes to this phenomenon as “the misperception that happiness results from our relationship with objects”. Data collected solely from sense perception and subjective experience cannot be relied upon to be expressed as truth in words. Due to the constant fluctuations in the patterns which constitute our perceptions, no one thing can be said to be true for any longer than the moment at which it was perceived to be true. This subjective and mutative illusion of “truth” suddenly loses its credibility between one moment and the next.
In order to be able to see things as they are we must clear away the emotional and ideological connotations and debris, take a step into the unknown and at least provisionally accept the possibility that our perceptions may be inaccurate. I propose going one step further than using words as signposts, and utilising them also as mirrors. If a word provokes a strong feeling or opinion it is useful to look inside for the root of this reaction, and in doing so one may find that the charge attached to this word reflects fear, pride and all too possibly ignorance. A step into the unknown can only result in knowledge, and in decreasing our dependency on language for self-affirmation we may be taking an illuminating step into the dark towards evolution of consciousness.