The Center Won't Hold

 

The center is always moving. This goes for many facets of life. Socially. Culturally. Spiritually. Politically and so much more! The only thing constant is change! 

We all start from a center. It may be a thought. It may be an intuition or a feeling, but there is always a starting place for any action. The center is YOU (and not you) and everything that you do tends to reflect back to the core of the center. The quality of the radiance. The stability of the home base. You and everyone else you know start from different centers, but you all come from a center that is conditioned from the past, genetics and continuant external forces. It is the "I" that defines the self and how we see ourselves and the world around us. But who is really defining what?

Are you the same person that you are now 3 years ago? How about 3 months ago? How about....? We can ask ourselves any question on how we saw ourselves in the past. It is gone. It only exists as a memory. Most of us grow from past experiences and when we don't we tend to fall into patterns, habits and psychoses. The center can become agitated and erratic. The center is always moving even when we think it is more or less stationary. When the center doesn't grow or get trapped, it can erode. It will attempt to change or go towards a different direction. Some of these directions may lead us down unexpected paths...for the better.

Change will grow us and Growth will change us - Laraaji

Some of us get comfortable with the center. It can define who we are and provide us comfort. That comfort can put us in a zone of bewilderment and complacency. Holding to a center that from the past is a denial of the movement of the center. The resistance to the movement of the center just creates more conflict and confusion. A confusion built on denial and the pursuit towards certainty. The only conceivable certainty is uncertainty. Any nostalgic grab towards certain can lead to problems. One must move with the center to understand the center. To understand the mechanisms that made the center comfortable or tolerable in the first place. 

What we resist persists and when the resistance is towards the center then we somehow miss the mark.

Think of the center as waves in the ocean. They rise up and then sink back into the sea. If you are surfer than you will want to ride the wave and not go against it otherwise you will face sinking plunder. One must ride the center and know how to move with the highs and lows. The peaks and the valleys. The center has its moments. At the peak, you can see its great appeal, but it can only last for so long. Pretty soon a new and different wave will emerge. Waiting for the last wave to repeat will only create more conflict. 

Trying to reach for or define the center can push us far away from it. The closer we try to get, the farther it tends to move.

In reality it is the idea of the center that tends to bind us. We start to appreciate the conceptual center more when we float towards the fringes. We can not know what happiness feels like until we have experienced sadness. We cannot know what lies outside of the center until we step outside of our own comfort zones and experience it ourselves. To go away from the center is to go towards the unknown. It is to take a leap from comfort to possible discomfort. From order to chaos. From certainty to uncertainty. Once we go outside into the fringes then we can have a newly formed perspective of the center from which we sprang. It may not look the same and frankly it shouldn't. You will have new knowledge and realize that the center has shifted or at least your conceptualization of what you thought the center was. The center tends to shift whether you like it or not. 

The center isn't the problem. It is the identification with the center that can create the problems. If we identify with the center than we lose our footing. When we grasp for that certainty, we blind ourselves to the external forces around us. Think about the people that strive so hard to recreate the past. The past becomes their center. Their mantra and guide. The more they grasp to recreate the past, the more they lose their sense of perception. The more you chase a memory, the fuzzier it tends to get. The images in our mind become distorted and we start to detach from the original experience. The center will always move. It's how we move with it that determines our disposition and unfettered destiny. 

Once the center starts to come in focus, it starts to blur...

The constant move to try to make the center more ordered will only create more of its opposite. Chaos or what have you. A disorder of many kinds. We tend to want to make the center in our own self projected image. This tends to be a mistake. If we choose to acknowledge the center and move with it, then we create no resistance. No unnecessary struggle or conflict. The acceptance of the center is a move towards growth and inevitable change. You might come to realize that it is indeed not or will it be ever be specifically about you. When you think the center is you, then the thought tends to distort the sense of reality around you. There's more to you that meets the eye. 

To define is to limit. Defining the center is rejecting the center. It is the attempt at trying to escape the constant movement of the center. Once we start to define the center it starts to crumble. We box it in and it starts to die. The center will climb over the walls and break the chains of which you give it. The center is like a light in the distance that we cannot grasp. We can only watch and react in indirect ways. The center sends out waves that we can ride or reject. Of course any push back will cause some type of resistance and change the perception of the center. A perverted image of the center. We project onto what we think the center is when we really do not know. 

Let the center express itself. Observe where the center is and leave it alone. Let it do its thing. 

The center won't hold. The center will change. Once we realize the impermanence of the center we can start to live with the nebulous nature of uncertainty and creative spontaneity. 

DG