The Conscious Game of Hide and Seek

The Conscious Game of Hide and Seek

What you seek is seeking you. ─ Rumi

Certain passive types of human machines, including myself, exhibit a chief feature called “non-existence.” This feature helps explain why the waiter forgets to take my order, or why I am often the last one served, or why others cannot recall my name when reflecting on that dinner party (in which the waiter forgot my order). Non-existence is a form of hiding from life, a way of disappearing. It just happens to me.

One way I work to understand and overcome my chief feature is to observe how I react (mechanically) to friction. In the case of non-existence, when the heat is on, I simply slip away and fail to exist. I hide from the source of friction. To the machine, this is a most advantageous strategy. Why fight the fight when I can avoid the conflict?

Chief feature is most anxious to classify its manifestations as favorable because its illusory existence may be jeopardized. ─ The Teacher

Because I aim to be more awake, however, I learn to resist or control the expression of non-existence by remembering myself. If I work earnestly to accept the moment as it is and do not hide from it, then a door to Higher Centers opens. After acquiring many observations about my habits and attitudes involving non-existence, when I feel identification rising in me, I try to reorient my perspective on the unfolding situation and see it not as friction but as an instructive opportunity.

As human creatures, living in our bodies, we don't really know ourselves. . . We can learn who we really are. ─ Julian of Norwich

With the help of others in the School to share observations and to raise my awareness, I can better understand and work with my chief feature. In turn, such discipline and consistency help me to transform real sufferings in my life, such as the loss of my father or the friction resulting from self-work. In the end, I transform the suffering associated with my mechanical non-existence feature and its manifestations. It is another example of making something from nothing. From non-existence, I can become “all and everything.”

Everyone has a non-existence feature in relation to Self-remem­bering – when we are not remembering ourselves, we are all men number zero. ─ The Teacher

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James Tissot, Hide and Seek