Yin Yang Pinball
There is clearly a hierarchy of consciousness in the human realm, a broad spectrum in how humans relate to their environment, themselves and others. At the lower levels, it’s as though there isn’t even any recognition that they possess a consciousness that allows them to explore their inner realms. I don’t intend this in any pejorative way but at this level, humans are like a one-cell amoeba that interfaces with their reality based on their senses; or the pig who is perfectly content rolling and rollicking in mud all day. Life is simple at this level.
As one develops the capacity to recognize their own consciousness, their ability to think and reason, life is enhanced in many ways, but also becomes more complicated. This is especially the case at the higher transcendental levels where the seeker in us fully blossoms.
An image popped into my mind related to this idea of personal development. I imagined a 3-D image of the yin-yang symbol, a sphere, and we are inside that sphere. Similar to a giant pinball machine, we are shot into this sphere at great velocity. We then bounce back and forth violently off the walls and exert a great deal of force attempting to quiet our minds, thereby slowing ourselves down until we come to a full stop in complete balance between the yin and the yang. In this 3-D model of a spherical yin-yang symbol, the line dividing the two sides is actually elevated into a mountain peak. After we manage to stop bouncing off the walls, we then have to learn to balance ourselves on this mountain peak, and end up rolling down one side of the mountain. Now similar to Sysiphus pushing his rock up to the mountain only to arrive at the peak and have the rock roll down the other side, we, as pinballs, arrive at the top of the mountain, try to find balance, but end up rolling down the other side. We now repeat this endeavor with gusto seeking to find perfect balance on top of the mountain. That is our goal and we believe that we will achieve a sort of Nirvana once this is accomplished.
After many years, or even lifetimes, some actually achieve this state of balance and equanimity but likely still have to exert a certain level of energy to maintain this state. If peace, balance, tranquility, and equanimity are the goals, then they have crossed the finish line. Hooray!!! However, this is a classic bait and switch. This wasn’t actually what they set out for, was it? They were in fact seeking enlightenment, liberation, and instead handed something else. Consequently, they have only managed to climb to the highest levels of the hierarchy and sit high above on the line that balances the yin and the yang looking down with great compassion on the masses who are stuck on either side of duality, bouncing of the walls, or still rolling up and down the mountain. But now what? Was this the goal of so many lifetimes of seeking?
Note that this achievement is no small feat and should absolutely be celebrated. It is akin to the pig who one day suddenly realizes that he’s covered in mud and really doesn’t understand why he was there for so long to begin with. All his friends are beckoning him to come back and play in the mud but after such a realization, he can never go back. He’s operating at a different plane now and can almost be considered a different species. So bravo, if nothing else than the fact that our hero is no longer bouncing off the walls of the yin-yang sphere, or following in the footsteps of Sisyphus and rolling up and down the mountain. Bravo to have achieved balance, equanimity, peace and tranquility.
Our hero will certainly be thrilled about his or her great achievement for a while, but in a moment of reflection, inevitable after so many years of seeking, he or she will ask in the same tone of voice as the woman in the “Business Time” skit by “Flight of the Conchords’” that started this musing: “Is that it?!!!” (YOU MUST WATCH THIS!!!) Despite all the effort in the world to convince himself/herself otherwise, our hero knows that this is not “it,” and has merely found him/herself in a cul-de-sac that is even deeper than the last. It’s at this point that Lao Tzu’s saying “A journey of a 1,000 miles begins with one step” seems like complete bullshit, and one begins to wonder if Lao Tzu wasn’t one of Maya’s minions whose intention was simply to keep us seeking, a euphemism for navel gazing or chasing our tails.
At some point, if we, the hero of our drama, are blessed with grace, we may recognize the futility of it all, and tire of the role of pinball bouncing off the walls. Even if we achieve that state of balance between the yin and the yang, we are still the pin ball that is now hung up on one of the abutments in the game and now require some serious hip action against the machine to get us rolling again. But to what end? The point is that the entire game is rigged to keep us bouncing around and the points that we accumulate by hitting the right abutments and staying in the game are worthless distractions. Once you finally get this you feel like a complete nincompoop for feeling so good about all of those ultimately meaningless achievements, and worse, now realize that you and the pig who was inquiring about what the point of rolling around in mud for so many lifetimes, actually have a lot in common.
So what now, Batman? After wallowing in self-pity until you bitch-slap yourself out the tizzy you find yourself in, you now find yourself in a fork in the road. You try to decide which one to take because you want to avoid another cul-de-sac at all costs. You now insist on liberation or bust. After being on this path for so long, you now wonder if this fork is yet another one of Maya’s traps to keep you on the treadmill leading to nowhere. So like Bruce Lee in “Enter the Dragon,” when trapped in Dr. Han’s lair, who instead of pacing back and forth simply sits and meditates until the next move is indicated (or in a similar scene from Star Wars: Episode 1- The Phantom Menace, which must have been a tribute to Bruce Lee, when Qui-Gon Jinn is fighting Darth Maul and a force field separates them. Darth Maul is pacing back and forth like a rabid dog while Qui-Gon Jinn sits in lotus and meditates), you sit at the fork in the road and analyze the situation. You’ve been at this very same fork in the road many, many times over the course of so many lifetimes, and it dawns on you that regardless of the road you take, you end up in a cul-de-sac, a dead end, which leads you back to this exact spot: Right/left, black/white, yin/yang, all synonyms for Carajo Land!
Despite the frustration of the recognition that you’ve been in this same situation many times before, this recognition is a great gift indeed. You now realize (hopefully!) the futility taking either road (or any road for that matter!) and begin to realize that perhaps the problem is one of perspective. Suppose the mountain, the two sides representing the yin and the yang, and even the sphere itself are constructs? Now that’s a game changer!
Jed McKenna asks in one of the books of his “Enlightenment Trilogy” how many elements make up the yin-Yang symbol. Most will respond either two or four depending on whether you count the circles within each side. Jed points out that in fact there either three or five. The additional element is the circle that contains each side, the sphere in which all of our drama appears to take place. Jed points out that without the circle/sphere, the entire model falls apart and what’s left is Consciousness. It’s all Consciousness! There’s only Consciousness! It’s Consciousness playing all the roles, playing the role of each one of us.
If you can see this then the entire world collapses. It all becomes the longest running Broadway show that’s impossible to get tickets for because it’s so great, and we are blessed with being the star of the show and simultaneously having front and center seats. From this perspective, bouncing off the walls, rolling up and down the mountain, and rollicking in the mud is all a blast. Let’s do it again!!! It’s at this point that the three phrases that have always helped me through difficult situations take on even more significance and summarize all the wisdom in the history of humankind:
1. “Don’t sweat the small stuff…and by the way, it’s all small stuff.”
2. “Everyone is doing the best that they can with the resources that they have at that particular moment.” (this includes amoebas!)
3. “It doesn’t matter!” (Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson, who I am now even more convinced is an enlightened being masquerading as a wrestler/actor!)
I am an emergency physician, writer and a lover of life. The purpose of this blog is to share my ideas, experiences and perspectives as they relate to Consciousness, and as they evolve. Consciousness encompasses everything in my life, your life, the world, the Universe — in other words — EVERYTHING! As the great Shaman Don Diego used to say: “It’s not the most important thing, and it’s not the least important thing…It’s the ONLY thing!”
Check out my novel: “The Twin Flames, the Master, and the Game”! It’s available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Balboa Press.
