Being it

 Being it

Michael was a young man by now. As he looked at himself in the mirror, studying his 28 year-old face, he was musing about how he had got here, what it felt like and what lay ahead of him.

He was in a kind of an undefined moment, where he felt fulfilled, unattached to any particular identity and yet he still believed there was something missing for him to really assume he was past all of his prior human afflictions and really stepping into a whole new world where none of what he had known so far would be quite the same, ever.

The vast unknown of the new now. His skin was bright and healthy and his eyes had a liveliness to them, a sparkle that had been growing lately. He felt much older than his years and at the same time like an innocent child ready to play forever. But the games he was ready to play were of a different nature to the ones he had been playing so far. And this is where he tended to get stuck. There was something enticing about staying with what was known. Something that grabbed him and kept on bringing him back into the circles of feeling less than enough, unworthy or somehow not ready to be sovereign like the wise Master he used to visit every so often. The one that lived a few blocks away in a small house with a quaint garden, with no worries or concerns, just enjoying each day with that beautiful smile of knowingness planted on his face all the time. He almost envied him for being able to stay in such an ease and flow of simplicity. That’s what he wanted. He wanted it more than anything else. But still he seemed not to be ready.

So he decided to go and visit him. See if he had anything to say that could help him change this repetitive pattern which he always got himself back into.

***

Sure enough there he was, sitting on his porch, sipping a cup of tea, listening to the song of nature coupled with the buzz of the city beyond his garden, breathing… and smiling.

He saw I was a little bit troubled and asked “so my friend, how have you been?”

“Fine, I guess. There is this strange feeling that all is well, almost too well and then I get myself into not trusting myself to be so well and somehow find a way to prove there is something wrong with me.”

“Hmmmm”. He said. Quietly sipping his tea and then putting his cup down on the small table beside his comfortable chair.

“Would you like to make an experiment?” He asked me. 

“Well, if it’s going to make things clearer for me, of course.” I humbly replied.

“Every day, try this routine of going around in circles for a while. Could be in your living room or outside somewhere. The circles can be smaller or wider and they can be whichever number you choose. Just try going around in circles for a while, every day. Complete circles. And see what that brings you.”

I looked at him, a little bit perplexed, not really understanding what use that would have, but since he was definitely a Master and I trusted him so much, I accepted the challenge.

*** 

Michael thanked Tobias and left, still not entirely convinced about the use of this little experiment.

He started that very day, during a walk in the park, where he went around the large pond a few times. Trying to pay attention to what he felt. 

Each day he repeated this exercise of going around in circles, sometimes at home, sometimes outside, sometimes wider circles, sometimes smaller. And he started noticing a few things. The familiarity felt somehow comforting. Though it was an empty thing in itself, it felt good to know that he would end up where he started each and every time and that he knew where to step and knew what the path looked like too. It was strangely hypnotic and while he was obediently going around in these repetitive circles, his mind had free rein to create all sorts of thoughts, incessantly rambling away, as if to keep him company within the seeming boredom of taking the same trajectory over and over again. 

The comfort beckoned for discomfort so it became more seductive to create some sort of more adrenaline driven event somewhere amidst the circles or some other time of the day, just to wash away that feeling of sameness.

So he got himself into watching drama filled series and going around town to find some sort of exciting event that would disrupt the numbness of feeling dumbed down by doing the same thing every day.

He started feeling silly and strange and anxious. But it wasn’t the circles themselves. They had nothing in them. They were just simply circles. Nothing to discover. It was him. How he felt inside. On one hand comfortable and somewhat safe, but on the other wanting more than just that and doubting himself to be able to be more than what he perceived to be nothing much.

He realized he was expecting something. He didn’t even know what. Something that had to be better, or more worthy somehow. More grandiose maybe. Something that he might qualify as magical. But this got him questioning: what was magical after all?

He went to the Master and shared what he had been feeling.

 

***

“I just can’t figure out what is missing.”

“What if nothing is missing? What if you decide to start stepping out of the circles midway? Or right into the middle? Would you still need to come back to them and complete them? Would you feel there was some sort of imperfection with not completing a whole circle each time?”

“I don’t know. I am not sure who I am or who I am supposed to be and what I will find if I do start breaking the circles mid-way and never coming back to complete them. I am not sure what life will be like without feeling unsure of myself and my steps, without the comfort of the circles and the need to create discomfort because of them. Even stepping into the centre of the circle and staying there… Hmmmm, just there. If I become sure, firm in my knowingness and really surrender to being whole, I won’t be stuck anymore and that seems scary right now. It seems too vast, too grand… Oh!!!! Maybe this is the grandness I am expecting then?! This that I am afraid of allowing!”

“Maybe it is. Why don’t you go out and try it for a while and see how these experiences out of your usual circles feel.”

“You know, I look at you and you seem so content. And yet your life is so absolutely simple. And I like it. I like what I see in you and I love being in your Presence but somehow I am not sure if this is enough for me…”

“The question is, really: are you enough for you?”

***

With a smile, Michael looked into Tobias’s eyes, tears flooding his own, and he understood, deep in his heart, like a torch lighting the olympic flame. He was it. Now.

 

Text by T. C. Aeelah

Photo by Alesia Kozik - Pexels