Our Attitude to Change
The way we relate to change is how we relate to life itself, because life is nothing but a constant flow of change. The Greek philosopher, Heraclitus, said, “Life is like a river where you cannot step in the same water twice.”
In the few seconcs since you started reading this article, for instance, thousands of your brain cells have undergone changes. Now your brain isn’t quite the same as it was before. And all the cells in your body were not there several years ago. Look at nature and that’s all you’ll see – endless movement and change. Some changes are hardly noticeable because they occur over millions of years, while other changes are noticed instantly.
Modern life exposes us to ever-increasing rates of change. The book “Future Shock” argued that rapid change raises our anxiety levels to a state of shock. Uncertainty has become most certain. We are less able than in the past to control and predict how things are going to turn out. This is reflected by the speed in which our feelings and thoughts are changing. To our ego identity that desires the known and certainty it feels at times chaotic, confusing even scary.
Evolution created for us the thinking mind, by which we use language to gain some certainty in a threatening world. At the age of eighteen months we started to use words to organize and control a world in which we felt entirely powerless. The one word that gave us the greatest sense of control was the word “No.”
For some people this “No” becomes so ingrained as a source of power that they adopt avoidance and resistance as a way of survival – “no” to new ideas, to new experiences, to new people. They may survive but sadly they are unaware of how much they miss out in their lives. Their “No” actually stops their learning and growth. It is “NO” to life itself.
That little ego with the big NO will keep us in the fortress, deluded by the illusion of safety, as long as we believe this is who we are – an identity made up of stories. To identify with the story is like being under the influence of a hypnotist, or like being in a horror movie and not realizing that it’s a movie. Once we see the reality of the movie we don’t change the content much but at least we have a bit more fun!
Fear of change could stop altogether once we realize that our unbounded awareness is the essence of who we are. This is a paradigm shift that leads us to experience being the unchanging observer.
The “I” as the observer is the constant in the process of infinite changes. Observer is always there to notice changes, moment by moment in thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations. The act of noticing is the very act that sets us free from the reactive and mechanistic mind. Seeing things as they are is the language of awareness. Once you recognize the self as awareness, as the space for all body and mind appearances, you have freed your true nature from the stories that have chained your spirit to the ground.
~ by Hagai Avisar. Hagai will return to Gurukula to offer several wonderful workshops in late July. More info >>>HERE
