A Slider
You know, that thing that's like a dial combined with a ruler
Woah, I thought a slider was a tiny hamburger! But it’s this other thing too, not a dial because it’s not round—you slide it from one end to the other, from zero to the highest setting. I’m picturing a physical object, but in print it’s called a likert scale.
I suggest that, starting in school or with our families, we each have our own inner contract, which could be shown on a likert scale or a slider. The people at the two extremes think, at the one end, “I’ll do everything they tell me,” (because I’m supposed to) and at the other, “I won’t do anything they tell me” (because screw them, who made them king?). But most of us are in the middle.
For example, if we look at paying attention in class, the scale runs from absolute focused attention, eyes on the teacher’s face at all times, to no attention, sitting in the back row reading a motorcycle magazine, tipping one’s chair back and occasionally crashing over backwards to the delight of the whole class.
So, we each write our own unspoken constitution. I’m sure that some or even most people do this automatically, unthinkingly, a pure gut reaction. But others, like Hakim and myself, have honed and worked on ours all our lives.
He’s a physically oriented person, so his inner agreement has a lot to do with the body, and he has explored physical sensations in great detail, whereas until I got sick with Lyme Disease, my attitude mirrored that of a Ray Bradbury character, “I could be potato solid for all I know.” Or, as someone once described college professors, “Their bodies are just vehicles to carry their minds around.”
Here’s my contract, my constitution: (a) We (myself and I) have agreed that we won’t do anything we don’t like, in which we find no beauty, no brilliance, no sweetness. We are guaranteed beauty! But the reason I can do many, many things within this constitution is that (2) We can find the appeal in almost anything. If there’s a glimmer of interest in it, we can do it!
Using this, I’ve been able to do almost everything I was supposed to do in life. Exceptions are French (yuck) and chemistry (snore)1. A few more things I would like, but just can’t do: math—I loved equations, but mine never came out right—and most physical things. A combination of bad coordination and slow reflexes made sports impossible, so I content myself with joyfully fast walks around a particular lake.
All this becomes relevant in our daily spiritual practice, which involves two exercises and some small bits. First we combine a focus on the chakras, the energy centers along the spine (Hinduism) and some Divine Names or Qualities of God (Islam/Sufism). Then there’s a long reading in Arabic which we now have memorized. I can read the Arabic itself, while those who can’t use a transliteration.
Now, I can only concentrate on three things at a time and I have to love them. For the morning recitation, they are reading the Arabic letters2, the sound of the Arabic, and the meaning. Combining these—and trying to remember the meanings now that we’re not using the book—gives me the joy that lets me continue.
For the chakra concentrations, I focus on the beauty of the note I’m producing, the meaning of the Divine Name we’re associating with it, and the placement of the chakra along the spine. Here’s where I differ from Hakim, whose concentrations are all physical3. He approaches this as a scientist, and his body is his laboratory. So the things that he enjoys would drive me away screaming and vice versa.
Thus when he asked me to try a new way of intoning the note, I was being asked to concentrate on four things, one more I can do. What went out the window was the beauty, as I now sounded like a duck. And if I tried to keep a different three, what I lost was the meaning, which for me is the point of the whole thing. So, to stay, I’ll have to negotiate this somehow.
I’m not telling you all this because you’ll be fascinated by my process, but to draw your attention to your own. Do you have such a contract with yourself? If so, what are its elements? (If you’re a certain kind of person, exploring this is way fun!) Finally, as you examine your own contract, possibly for the first time, are there ways it conflicts with the unspoken and maybe unexamined contracts of those close to you, creating recurring misunderstandings and hassles? Something to consider.
Okay, over and out from Karima. Ma salaama, auf wieder sehen, mitakuye oyasin. To all my relations. Huuuuuuu!
I was intrigued by the way the molecule perfectly replicates the components and behavior of any social group, but my chemistry teacher did not appreciate this.
This gets me high. Go figure.
Besides being a very physically-oriented person, spiritually he’s a scientist. Four types of human beings are described in Hinduism and in some Catholic writings: Physical (service, action, karma yoga); emotional (love and devotion to God, singing and dancing, bhakti yoga); mental (intellectual metaphysics, the higher or enlightened mind, jnana yoga); and raja (royal) yoga : A step by step, science-like process. Murshid Sam Lewis gives another good typology: the ways of the Saint (diving into the arms of Allah, abandoning volition), the Master (scientific approach), and the Prophet (a combination, or something else.) I’m the first type and Hakim is the second. If you’re the third, please get in touch and explain it to me.