Real Life

Recently I was told by my GP that the empty, hollow feeling I've been struggling with is called depersonalisation.  At first, I was told that I was probably experiencing depersonalisation as a pre-psychotic symptom, but then later I was informed that it had been going on too long for this to be the case.  I'm in between psychiatrists at the moment, so I feel a bit like I'm hanging around waiting to find out why I'm experiencing depersonliation and how it can be treated.

Here's some information on depersonalisation from Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Depersonalization

Meantime, I just have to find ways to alleviate the symptom...  I've found that exercising, sunshine and being in nature all help to some extent.  (Although it's winter, there have been some beautiful, sunny days in Melbourne in the last few weeks...)

I've read that praying or meditating can also help, but I'm not sure whether it's the depersonalisation itself which has been interfering with my experience of the presence of God over the last few years.  I've also read that accute anxiety goes hand in hand with depersonalisation, and this causes me to wonder whether the anxiety I've felt since I was a teenager surrounding spiritual matters (and which I've written about a bit in this blog) has been caused by the symptom; whether, in fact, I've had this for a lot longer than I realised...

Having decided that Advaita Vedanta is not for me, I've just come back to trying to 'hang out' with the God I got to know through Christianity.  Sometimes the empty, numb feeling of meaninglessness seems to impede this 'hanging out' together.  At other times, the anxiety has the same effect.  But I'm focusing on backing off and gracefully giving up when this happens, and having a few words in God's ear when I'm not hindered in either of these ways.

Another symptom which frequently occurs simultaneously with depersonalisation is derealisation; the feeling that the world around you is dreamlike, unreal.  I certianly experience this, a feeling of disconnection from my surroundings, from the embodied world.  Again, being in nature helps with this.  I believe the way that it helps relates to the theology of Sally McFague as discussed in her book, 'The Body of God.'  In nature, I feel connected to God's body, the earth, and to my body.  I feel connected to God and to my own self.

I've been listening to a song called 'Real Life' by Joan As Policewoman on my ipod, a gorgeous song which has the chorus:

'Cos I'm real life
and you're real life
and we're real life...'

In that lyric I've really heard the voice of God speaking to me.  Whether I feel it or not, relationship is real life, love is real life.  My relationship with God is real life.  Also, my relationship with PB is real life, because PB's love is an expression of God's love for me, but also just because it is! because it has value in and of itself.

Now I am focusing on the fact that God is present even when I can't feel Her presence, and that I am a person with my own unique identity, even when I can't sense that either.


[Photo downloaded 13th August, 2010, from: http://underthehill.wordpress.com/2008/12/].

'If you wish to fully appreciate the beauty of a rose, don't try to add to the rose.  Remove that which obscures the pure vision of the rose and keeps you from experiencing it in its perfect roseness.  Similarly, if you want to purely experience your own spiritual nature, you must subtract, not add.  How can you add to what is already perfect?  It is simply a matter of recognition, of stopping the search for something to add to make you more, better, greater...' (Thomas in Waite, 2007, p171).

Waite, D. (2007). Back to the truth: 5000 years of Advaita. Winchester, UK: O Books.

I'm beginning to think of myself as a Christian Advaitin...

I feel the truth of the statement 'Atman is Brahman', I feel that everything is interconnected, I do not believe that life should be carved up into pairs of opposites.  I also don't believe everything I read, and I feel that a lot of what resonates about Advaita is consistent with the best in Christian theology.

For example, knowledge of the Self, as discussed in Advaita, really corresponds with my experience of the presence of God.  'Atman is Brahman' feels like the presence of the God whom I got to know through Christianity, but whom one might get to 'know' through any number of other avenues.  Also, plenty of Christians believe that God lives inside them, and plenty more believe that the Higher Self and God are one and the same...

This relates to what I wrote a while ago about conversion and respect: perhaps I will never be 100% 'converted' from Christianity to anything else, and perhaps the whole notion of conversion (complete conversion) is disrespectful to the path we have already travelled and the roots or tradition we come from.

A bit of a tangent: Advaita asserts that everything is Brahman, that nothing has an existence separate from Brahman (this, by the way, corresponds very closely with the Christian assertion that God is in everything and everything has its being in God - I know this is not strictly the same, but I'm living this, not writing a philosophical exposition...) but I'm going to say unashamedly that God / Brahman is, at the moment, particularly in (or as) nature for me, and that right now I need that contact with nature to more keenly sense the presence of God.  This also has to do with getting back to where I came from, my roots.  The Australian natural landscape was such an important part of my childhood, and a source of inspiration for me, before I got stuck in my head and lost touch with it.  It's time to find some of that inspiration again...

'Mist and granite boulders, Mount Buffalo' by Kevin McGennan, downloaded 15th July, 2010, from:

http://www.redbubble.com/people/kevinmcgennan/art/3955762-2-mist-and-granite-boulders-mount-buffalo

On Beauty

'Beauty is akin to Ananda.  It is the recognition of our true nature in what is believed to be an external object' (Waite 2007, p99).

'Beauty is the visual doorway into the now, where we find the Self.  We can enter the now through the sense of sight, and the easiest way of doing this is by becoming absorbed in something beautiful.  It is possible, however, to enter the now by looking - really looking - at anything.  Everything is part of the Self, and becoming fully engaged with it brings us to the Self.  Beauty may be the easiest visual doorway because we are generally more willing to become fully engaged with something beautiful than with something that is not.  We say yes to beauty, and that yes takes us into the now.  However, anything that we see that we do not reject can bring us into the now.
'Beauty connects us instantly with joy.  Think of some of your happiest moments.  The beauty of nature was probably part of many of them.  Spending time in a beautiful, natural setting is one of the easiest ways to get in touch with the Real, with the Self.  Natural beauty brings us into the moment because it captures our attention so completely.' (Lake in Waite, 2007, p99-100).

Waite, D. (2007). Back to the truth: 5000 years of Advaita. Winchester, UK: O Books.

'Every morning' by Micheal Sutton, downloaded 5th July, 2010, from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sutto007/4758962412/in/pool-23966700@N00

'Yesterdays memory resting in the bush' by spacountry, downloaded 4th July 2010, from:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/spacountry/1059156898/

'Sweet thing'

by Van Morrison

And I will stroll the merry way
And jump the hedges first
And I will drink the clear
Clean water for to quench my thirst
And I shall watch the ferry-boats
And they'll get high
On a bluer ocean
Against tomorrow's sky
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain
And I will never grow so old again...

And I shall drive my chariot
Down your streets and cry
'Hey, it's me, I'm dynamite
And I don't know why'
And you shall take me strongly
In your arms again
And I will not remember
That I even felt the pain.
We shall walk and talk
In gardens all misty and wet with rain
And I will never, never, never
Grow so old again...


And I will raise my hand up
Into the night time sky
And count the stars
That's shining in your eye
Just to dig it all an' not to wonder
That's just fine
And I'll be satisfied
Not to read in between the lines
And I will walk and talk
In gardens all wet with rain
And I will never, ever, ever, ever
Grow so old again...


[I grew up listening to the Waterboys' cover of this song, so I've changed some of the words around to reflect the way they sang it.  I've also left out the chorus].

A chestnut tree is a chestnut tree...

Reading 'Prodigal Summer' by Barbara Kingsolver, I'm touched by the moments where a hollowed-out tree, the memory of an extinct species, a moth on a curtain, hold their own significance, without needing to refer to any lofty theme or system or theory or religion...

eg. '...the Walkers had lived well under the sheltering arms of the American chestnut until the slow devastation began to unfold in 1904, the year that brought down the chestnut blight.'

Talking about conserving the ginseng plant in a National Park area: '...she just loved the idea of those little man-shaped roots dancing in their world beneath the soil.  She wanted them to persist forever, not for the sake of impotent men in China or anywhere else, just for the sake of ginseng.'

Kingsolver, B. (2000). Prodigal summer. London: Faber and Faber.