The image....and the screen

When I was a young girl I can remember going to the cinema. At one point I felt this overwhelming urge to turn around and look behind me. What I saw was from what seemed to be one light came a mulitude of images on a screen. Something about that insight struck me forcibly and this morning I had the same thought but it was developed. Regular visitors to this blog will know that I have been lax in writing it. My resistance to writing it has been very strong. I have spent much of today resisting the urge to write it and now that I have finally sat down to write it I find that the restlessness I have grappled with for much of today has simply disappeared.



There is something more than just the light causing the mulitude of images that has prompted this blog entry. What I hadn't considered when I made the connection between the one light producing a multiple of images is the screen on which those images are shown. The screen is the background on which the images show themselves. The images are temporary and changing but the screen on which they are projected is permanent and unchanging. If we can relate to the images as our thoughts and feelings then it is possible to really get how like images on a screen they come and go. What remains constant is the screen. This insight this morning seemed somehow very important to write about.



What is strange about this insight and the urge to write is that the reason for me not writing this blog is that I have been attempting to enter into the world of relationships. Readers of past entries will remember that I wrote some posts about my efforts to become related to 'a guy in the gym'. For as long as I can remember I have had emotions but they have never been that strong. I have written about the different lines of development, physical, emotional, mental, spiritual and social. I assert that to emerge a healthy balanced person all of these lines have to develop more or less together. I will be the first to admit that my spiritual line of development is far in advance of my emotional development. My many years of spiritual study and thinking and writing gave me the belief that emotions have to be controlled. This was the spiritual path, control not indulgence of feelings and emotions. As a result I threw myself into the spiritual at the expense of the emotional.



I did this to such a degree that I blocked off the feelings of normal healthy attraction. The result of this is that when my friends used to say how much they fancied someone I had no idea what they were talking about. I sensed that there was some other way to feel but had no idea what that was or how to get in touch with it. I didn't see that there was anything missing. My spiritual path was the most important to me and it came before everything and everyone else. What I was not being honest with myself about though was that far from transcending my emotion I was just repressing and not allowing myself to feel. I have had boyfriends but had no idea what it was I supposed to feel for them so they didn't last long. I used to muse sometimes about why it seemed to be this way for me but then would bury myself in yet another spiritual truth and marvel at another spiritual truth that would once again resonate.



Just lately I find all of that changing. I am in touch with emotions now that I didn't know were possible to have never mind were there for me. They surfaced with the guy I wrote about who is married. What was amazing about this is that I was one woman to him for the 14 years we were friends. There was no chemistry there but because I had never experienced chemistry I didn't know that it was there to be had. Then something shifted and suddenly I was a totally different woman. As you can imagine he couldn't understand this transformation and was understandably fearful. For me, all I knew was that I was more easy and relaxed with him and that a chemistry was there that had never been. I suddenly saw for the first time how being with him when he was still married had no integrity and never would while the agreement of marriage was still in place. This shift in me together with this realization caused the end of this long what I will call 'an association'!



Now I find myself in a similar situation with 'the guy from the gym'. These feelings are now there for him in a huge way but also what is happening is that there is a marked increase in my spiritual insights. It's like I am being presented with a choice. I can work at getting my emotions to the same point as my spiritual development or I can choose to be grateful to be connected to my emotions, transcend them and pursue this spiritual journey. I find it strange that it is now that this abundance of spiritual thoughts and insights are hitting me. I went for the last couple of weeks not having many spiritual insights but today all of that changed and I think this has happened for me to choose......'my spiritual path.....or 'the guy of the gym'. And if not the guy from the gym because that is not a certainty but someone else.... I know that there are views that say both are possible but how many of the great prophets and sages were in committed relationships.....



Now that I have written all this I am so tempted to delete it and start again with something less raw but I won't....this is what is there for me at this moment and I will honour it by writing and letting it be published.