197_Reaction

 

“Intense presence is needed when certain situations trigger a reaction with a strong emotional charge, such as when your self-image is threatened, a challenge comes into your life that triggers fear, things ‘go wrong’, or an emotional complex from the past is brought up.”[i]

“Observation of the mind opens up the dimension of the timeless.”[ii]

“If you made a mistake in the past and learn from it now, you are using clock time. On the other hand, if you dwell on it mentally and self-criticism, remorse, or guilt come up, then you are making the mistake into ‘me’ and ‘mine’: you make it part of your sense of self and it has become psychological time, which is always linked to a false sense of identity. Non-forgiveness necessarily implies a heavy burden of psychological time.”[iii]

“If you then become excessively focused on the goal, perhaps because you are seeking happiness, fulfilment, or a more complete sense of self in it, the Now is no longer honoured.”[iv]

“There is never a time when your life is not this moment.”[v]

 ______

A PLAY:

He stood up on the stage and angled the compass North. He was an Architect.

The doctor walked in the room and smashed it under his heavy boot.

Architect: ‘So there is no orientation Lord? . . And the same to you Mr? . . Sorry, Doctor?  . . ‘

Doctor: ‘Aren’t you upset with me?’

The Architect took out a pocket compass he had made in his workshop.

Architect: ‘You see I always carry my own orientation.’

Pause.

Architect: ‘I can go anywhere at any time of year.’

Doctor: ‘Ah but I think you haven’t up here!’

Architect: ‘I have been to the stars up here!’

Pause.

Architect: ‘Doctor?’

Pause.

Doctor: ‘Never mind.’

Architect: insistently - ’What I’m trying to say is you expect me to react, don’t you?’

Doctor: hesitantly - ‘Well I might!’

Architect: abruptly – ‘For Christs sake!’

Pause.

Architect: confidently - ‘I’ll head West.’

He walks off the stage.

A child walks onto the stage.

Son: ‘I know you’re a doctor, of the mind and well I feel free.’

Pause.

Doctor: stoically - ‘Great, no great concerns there then.’

Pause.

A voice comes from off the stage.

Architect: shouting - ‘Son, never talk to a doctor, you hear me!’

Son: shyly - ‘But, dad . . . ‘

The Architect walks back on.

Architect: calmly - ‘I’m pleasant with him, just not to you – why? Because you either put me in the future or the past, and your present is hell.’

Pause.

Son: ‘Let’s go South son.’

And they relax in seats in the stalls.

The Doctor is left on stage.

Doctor: smugly - ‘Apologies the Architect and his son have a lot of trauma bottled up inside them!’

From the stalls.

Architect: Get him off he’s ugly, you do traumatise me, but my father’s now dead . . . And I know what it takes.’

Doctor: ‘It will take more than that to convince me.’

Architect: Let’s head North-East.

The architect and his son walk right up to the doctor.

Pause.

Architect: stoically - ‘This is how a mind works doctor?. . . Right, you say things and believe things, that there is no premise for, but because you are so self-convinced I’m a harm, I act in my own mind only towards you, as an ill, harmful, delinquent, don’t you get it? What we believe of each other is how we act towards them!’

Long Pause.

Doctor: ‘Ah??!!!! . . .. I accept your forgiveness and you may dutifully leave . . . It looks like I’m out of a job! Why am I so pessimistic?’

Architect: Because you’re paid to believe pessimism inside you exists, so it does!’

Pause.

Doctor: ‘Ah, sorry!’

Architect: ‘That’s better now I shall no-longer need to fight to prove my point . . . So, where are we headed son?’

Son: ‘I’d say, South-East, and out that door there, Dad!’

The, fading of the light tapping of feet and laughter!

 

THE END!

A-Men

Love, AB, x.

 

 

 

 

[i]   Tolle, Eckhart, The Power of Now, Hodder & Stoughton, London, UK, 2001, p.46.

[ii]  Tolle, Eckhart, The Power of Now, Hodder & Stoughton, London, UK, 2001, p.46.

[iii] Tolle, Eckhart, The Power of Now, Hodder & Stoughton, London, UK, 2001, p.47.

[iv] Tolle, Eckhart, The Power of Now, Hodder & Stoughton, London, UK, 2001, p.47.

[v]  Tolle, Eckhart, The Power of Now, Hodder & Stoughton, London, UK, 2001, p.48.