I was tempted to make the third Constantly "Constantinople" but that would have been misleading as this post has as little to do with Constantinople as it has to do with New York, New Delhi, Beijing or Cork.
We are constantly changing - round and round. Constantly framing impressions. Our view frame is surrounded by a frame of reference that is made up of stored images. Surrounded implies a 2-D matrix, but it may be just a continuum like a circle. A first impression is never a first because it is always compared with some previously stored image.
Constantly watching people's behaviour. Constantly judging their behaviour against some socio-moralistic code. This code was learned during our formative years and persists through most of our lives. The judgement is made instantly and then the tolerance factor comes into play. Tolerance is based on the idea that we are all learning. But it always comes after the judgement. So! How can we drop the judgement? Or maybe the question should be - How can we drop the ego?
When we just look at a blank scene there is no judgement triggered. We are just looking. When we look at a scene with a pattern, our pattern recognition triggers an association with a previously learned pattern. This is the same with behaviour patterns. In both cases we maybe looking for what's wrong, what's out of place. The problem arises more so with behaviour patterns because we wind up judging the person exhibiting the behaviour pattern, rather that trying to understand the pattern and not reacting to it.
Our behaviour pattern recognition system develops by watching and imitating the behaviour pattern of our parents, other adults and older children around us. So we develop a core pattern that we regard as the right one because it is based on all we know and is based primarily on mother's pattern. If not mother, it is based on the primary care giver's pattern. The pattern is associated with the images we have stored. Our first impressions of other people are based on a comparison with our primary image and our core behaviour pattern.
The stored images we have little control over because we had no ability to decide if we wanted to store them in the first place. In infancy we are busy gobbling up the images and impressions of our childhood environment. We have no discernment, no capacity for sorting, we're just soaking them up or absorbing them.
Much later we try to look at things, scenes or images without pattern recognition and that it is very difficult or almost impossible. The pattern recognition system has become dominant. However, closing our eyes and watching the screen has become one of my key ways for overcoming the ego. It does not have the movement problem associated with watching scenery or people-watching. Open-eyed stillness is difficult because something moves and our eyes and our attention becomes focussed on the movement. We start trying to figure out what's going on and sooner rather than later we're back in pattern recognition mode and it's inherent judgemental risks.
Constantly going round and round. All time and space is based on movement. No movement, no time, no space. In the Flower of Life scheme of things it is the projection of mind outside itself and it's subsequent movement which leads to all creation. It's all based on movement in egoland. The earth rotates and dances round and round with the moon. And in turn goes around the sun, which travels around the galaxy with the solar system in tow. On the surface of the earth all is movement. And within everything there is always movement.
But to our ego-centred view it appears mostly still. Even though we have rediscovered that earth/moon go around the sun, that the solar system goes around the galactic core, all of our thought systems are centric. There is a theory that the universe is omni-centric, that every point in it is at the centre of things. Maybe our egos aren't such ejiits after all.
In ego-centric terms each of us is at the centre of the universe, even if we regard this personal universe as a very small part of a much larger whole. Within our own sphere of influence we play a major part, even though we know that in the grand scheme of things our part is rather insignificant. When we look at the big picture we are inconsequential.
But there is no big picture, no ego based view that can see it all. To get to see it all we have to move outside ego and return to mind. And when we return to mind we cannot take any of the ego based stuff with us. So now we have a real problem for ego. Everything that we use, to think, to see, to hear, to speak, to do is all based on an ego system of symbols, words, language, images and sensations which are only representations and are not real.
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