Betrayal has, (apparently), come to visit me in the form of behaviors from those I love whose outcome is, in my perception, disrespectful to me and possibly even harmful.
And it does indeed slaughter hope…
We live in a culture that believes in hope. Hope as a concept, hope as a savior, hope as a true path, hope as a loophole offering escape in the very trajectory of our lives and finally our deaths.
And yet, somewhere deep inside me where the viscera of my organs and blood meet, I have come to see the danger of hope… and the horror of it.
Webster defines hope in this manner: “To desire, with expectation of fulfillment, as, to hope for the best. To expect with desire; to look forward to; to anticipate; to think; to expect”.
Hoping is the activity of the self, projected into the future, leaning as far away from the present moment experience as can be possibly accomplished. I am reminded of one of my dogs, who as a puppy loved to lean so far outside the window anticipating and enjoying the wind, that I had to hold her collar to keep her from sailing out the window, to what would have certainly been a painful and messy death. Hope is like that, leaning away from the present moment, so far into the wind, that we are in danger of losing ourselves entirely.
You may not be capable of abiding with me, in this decidedly unpopular view of hope, and how it pulls us from ourselves and into the unreal and imagined future, and if so, I will no doubt have already lost you. But if you are interested, as I am, in becoming fearless perhaps you might journey with me, while we take a fresh look at hope and its dark twin betrayal.
It is not possible to be betrayed by a loved one, were it not for the hidden aspect of hoping that it will be different this time. The cycle of hope and betrayal is the snake that bites it’s own tail, in a never ending and circular pattern, which causes wives to stay with men who beat them, or children to hope for parents worthy of their love, or me, to find myself once more, standing in shoes worn bare by use.
I have only one strong memory of my very early childhood, a childhood whose central feature was the anticipation of the next wild loosing of my mother’s rage and the fear that rage inspired. This memory has a very real kinesthetic quality to it, a visual memory taut with the power of its pull and impact, on a child, trying to untie the knot of understanding and reveal the escape route so longed for, so hoped for, so yearned for…
I am reaching out and up, my hand is dimpled and plump, my mothers dress is full and circular in the style of the fifties, and I take hold of her dress pulling and tugging it to gain her attention…in a small voice, in a sad tone…I ask my mother…”What is wrong with me, Mommy?”
This question framed in the context and understanding of a very young child was meant to query why I was so unlovable, why no one noticed my fear and trembling, why no one came to save me, why no one loved me enough to hold me close and keep the pain from drowning me.
It will serve you to know that “hope”, for me, was born there in that moment… while I tugged on my mother’s cotton floral skirt. A hope that has betrayed me all the days of my life, as it set my feet upon the path of waiting to begin living until tomorrow… a waiting that has informed, and consumed, and deformed, the very fabric of my life.
In Abraham Lincoln’s second inaugural address, speaking to the inequities of slavery and the impact of it’s social and spiritual effects upon the life of our nation, he said…” and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword”, the hope my young self generated in that oft repeated questioning of my mother, has resulted in “every drop of blood drawn with the lash to be paid by another drawn with the sword.”
I set my life upon a course of hoping for a future that will never, and can never be born. And in setting my course in this manner I have drawn blood, both by the “lash” and in response and recompense, by the “sword”.
The hand affixed to both the lash and the sword is my own.
Try, if you can, to hear the resonance of truth that echoes from beyond the veil of understanding, to inform the notion that all the suffering that has ever found me, found me by my own hand. And this is true of you, as well…
As my sister seeks financial salvation through an action that could result in my financial ruin, every drop of suffering her actions have triggered, has been drawn by my own hand, both the lash and the sword are being welded by me, and me alone.
Here is where betrayal can and does slaughter hope, and rightly so…
To hope that another will rescue us, removing us from our spiritual debts, resolving the conflicts of our lives, and thereby presenting us with salvation, is the hope of immature children whose lives will never be fully their own.
I am committed to ending my days as a fully functioning and resolute adult, not the helpless and frightened child I began this life as. It is therefore a necessity that I rid myself of the type of hope that Webster defines as “desire, with expectation of fulfillment”, this kind of hope cannot live if it does not have the “future” upon which to rely. The future, just as surely as the past, does not exist…and thus hoping for that more desirable future is a means of running from ourselves, and escaping the present moment, which is the only Life there is.
When another’s actions begin to color themselves, in our minds, as “betrayal” we are called into a type of war. We imagine this war as being one outside of us, in a conflict with the perpetrator of betrayal, and thereby absolving ourselves of guilt in the slashing and burning that war always brings with it.
Lincoln, the great orator, defined the War Between the States in this manner… “but one of them would make war rather than let the nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came”.
When we are in the midst of defining another as the perpetrator of betrayal in our lives, then we find ourselves in the unenviable position of both “making” war so that some part of us may continue to go unrecognized, and “accepting” war rather than allowing us to continue in our blind warmongering and desiring of a hope that dazzles us with believing in a future, where we can live without conflict or demands.
The conditioned mind examines the behavior of others and deems that behavior to constitute betrayal and begins to make war upon them, when in truth the war and its savagery is an entirely internal affair. The only possible cure is that we, like Lincoln, must be willing to accept the war within ourselves, so as to preserve, enhance, discover, and uncover, the Self that may one day become capable of recognizing the shared Ground of Being from which we all source.
As Lincoln was compelled to do, we must become willing of accepting this war of our mind upon itself, if we are to prevail and in Lincoln’s words win for ourselves… “malice toward none, charity for all, firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the self’s (nations) wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves...
It has been reported by his secretary that Mahatma Gandhi’s last words were “Rama and Rahim”, this is a very unpopular view of the beloved leader, as Rama and Rahim are the Muslim name for God and thus allows for the world’s most inspiring Hindu leader to be framed in the light of Muslim understanding as well. In one of his talks, Gandhi even defines himself as a “super-atheist”, accepting the views of those who believe in no form of deity at all, to be honored and cherished equally with his. This is the evidence of a mind no longer at war with itself, a mind healed of the divisiveness of believing that anything at all happens in the outer, or external.
Nothing occurs outside of you…nothing at all, of any consequence what-so-ever.
I am happy to be able to share with you an example of this type of enlightened mind, closer to home. My teacher, during one of his by-monthly talks, took my breath away relating a story I would not have been capable of imagining as ever having happened, to one so pure of heart.
It seems a woman called and secured an appointment to see him, something he did - as always - free of charge, she came, sat, and began to describe a moment some months previous, when she had planned, intended, and attempted to execute, his assassination.
She had come to a large gathering, to hear him speak…sure that he was the devil, and committed to cleansing the body human of a one such as he. She carried into the meeting, concealed in her purse, a small caliber weapon. When the talk was completed, coming from the back of the auditorium she strove and struggled, to make her way through the crowd to a sure enough range that her bullet would find it’s mark, and strike him dead. She reported to him, that for reasons unknown to her, no matter which way she turned nor how mightily she tried, she could not reach him and after a good long while gave up in frustration, promising to herself to return at some later date and complete her decision.
Instead, she came finally to confess to him, and absolve herself of the insanity that had polluted her mind…a choice that must have taken enormous courage. And seeing only peace and well being, no matter where, or upon whom he looked, he offered her an important role in his ongoing organization and its efforts to provide others with the means by which to secure their freedom. A job she held for many fruitful years, until shortly before her death.
If you imagine that the power of these stories is in the results…that Gandhi’s assassins bullet found it’s mark and my Teacher was spared, then you have resorted to viewing life with the telescope turned the wrong way round once again. What happens in the outer, is of little or no consequence, it is the response of both these great men to which we must turn our attention. Completely at rest, and in perfect trust…they both accepted the actions, decisions, and behaviors of others as entirely correct and appropriate to the needs of the Oneself.
It is reported by Gandhi’s secretary, Pyarelal, who was walking with him when the first bullet struck, that…”At first shot, the foot that was in motion, when he was hit, came down. He still stood on his legs when the second shot rang out, and then collapsed. The last words he uttered were Rama Rama”, (most scholars now accept the notion that Gandhi was indeed trying to say Rama Rahim and was unable to clearly enunciate the second name due to the effects of blood and energy loss).
To a healed mind, freed from the twin darknesses of both hope and betrayal, all that can be seen is freedom, peace, and harmony of action.
We must become willing to know and trust, the teachings of all of the Ageless Wisdom Traditions, wherein as A Course in Miracles states…“Love brings up everything unlike itself, to be healed”.
To have a loved one, family or friend, “betray” you is to bend your will to the great workings of Universal Intelligence and allow the appearance in the outer, to help you realize in what way and in which form, you must become willing to heal the broken mind that resides within.
Adayre R. Miller
2/14/11
photo courtesy of Sismoon and flickr photo sharing, to see more of this artist’s work please follow this link www.flickr.com/photos/howling-at-the-moon/2435581284/in/photostream/
No comments:
Post a Comment