Offense. I’m 60 years old, she tells me, and I’ve done a thing or two in life. Why do I deserve this? And I am from there, she continues. They know where it takes me back to. From my sitting position on the floor, I raise my eyes to hers. Olive green and wondering, meet a true, stormy green. We have known each other for two days. I shrug my shoulders: why do you care? I’m a Jew, the daughter of Holocaust survivors. I’ve also done a thing or two in my life. And no, it doesn’t bother me. I’ll get there anyway, I couldn’t care less about taking attendance. It’s a choice to take offense. The exercise begins and ends the conversation. Tomorrow she’ll thank me for the message. A few days later the offended feeling will return. Fear is the at the base of offense. At the basis of the offended feeling is fear[1]. And then will come anger.
Anger. A pretty 31-year-old woman and from the moment we met I knew she was a copy of Lula. No, not in her looks, not at all, but in her character. Seeking justice, independent, a wild horse. She didn’t like it when they assigned her to take attendance in class. “Look”, she shows me a pile of attendance sheets, “On each of them I wrote down a quote from Swami Sivananda or another yogi on trust. I thought I would just hand them out to the teachers”. She seeks support in my eyes. “Do you want them to come to speak with you?” I ask though, the answer is so clear. She smiles. Understands. “I would just have told them what was in my heart”, I smile at her in agreement, “but this is another way to do it”. The written clue did not register. Nobody came to ask her what the quotes meant. On the last evening, she rebelled. She stayed away. Absent. Nobody took attendance. Then they came. Pleasantly but assertively, they pulled her from her hiding place in her tent. They returned her to her place. They saw her. At the basis of anger is fear as well.
Anxiety. A student again. Despite the fact that after I passed the Bar, I swore I was finished with examinations. I signed up. A small effort to make an old dream come true. Everything was fine until I got to Paradise. The was heavy on my shoulders and would not relent. It began on the initiation evening when a small but insistent voice awoke to the sound of the instruction to go up on stage, obtain a uniform, change into it offstage and sit back down. “What if the pants won’t fit me?” like the song about 100 bottles of beer on the wall…99…98..97..in different variations. A sigh of relief when I step into the pants easily. Not surprising – I stated my clothing size on the registry form. Not relevant to fear. In the 3rd week, it was my turn to teach a whole lesson for the first time. I’m totally prepared. So why the pressure? And I have tools, and things in their right proportions reasoning. And still I feel pressure. And excitement. Teaching. Pressure. I can’t really enjoy it. When I’m stressed, I’m not as good a teacher. Blue sumo rules everything. Cold technique. Rigid. My teacher feedback says – you have such a nice smile…it would be great if you just smiled. When you fear, it’s hard to smile.
Smiling. Went well. No real or imaginary threat until next time. Sitting down to hear general feedback for completion of the teaching exercise. And suddenly a deafening melody is emitted from one of the bags. Yes, mine is there too. But I don’t move. My phone doesn’t have such a deafening ring, and this delinquent music definitely isn’t on my playlist. An American student more than 60 years old checks his pack and we all smile: “Who would have thought? Someone like him…” But no. A pretty lifts my bag. The sound appears to be coming from it. I pale and the smile freezes on my face. My cell phone is very loudly playing hardcore Gangsta Rap in the middle of Paradise. How scary.
Superstar, the song shouted to us, and something else. To all of us. In a language we have all mastered. One that doesn’t actually distinguish between male or female. One can easily identify with it. But we were busy. Giggling (everyone) or embarrassed (me)…and we didn’t hear. Moments afterwards, in my tent, I quietly check to see what my cell phone was trying to say. It was clear to me that if the phone was lying quietly in my bag for more than an hour and a half, and suddenly, without anyone touching it, it started playing rap from an Apple Music directory that I had never opened before…there is a message here. And not just for me. Here it is:
If you are what you say you are, a superstar
Then have no fear.
(the full version – not recommended for sensitive ears).
Fears: All varieties, at every level. That people don’t see us. That others have power over us. That we’ll fail. That we’ll succeed. That we’ll die. That things won’t go well. That things will go too well. And on and on and on. We all know this, even those of us that don’t show it. We fear the unknown, the unfamiliar, a lack of control. We fear out of a lack of understanding of reality. We fear from a lack of understanding of ourselves. If we are the superstars we are, why are we so scared?
Ignorance. The yogis explain that ignorance is the reason for human suffering. Ignorance of the absolute truth about ourselves. We identify with all kinds of things that we are not. Not really. And stick to them so fiercely that we lose our flexibility. When reality meets our rigidity in its total changing dynamic, we are appalled. Some fight, even when there is no reason to. Taking attendance isn’t related to anything except the fact that she was again chosen to be a student. Some flee, are absent and mostly come back later. And some freeze… partially or completely, they stop smiling.
Stars. We are all bodies of light. Just as we are. If we could only remember. If we could only hear the rest of the song, even though it’s rap, we would know that the cameras are already here and the microphone is on. The audience is watching and the stage is lit. Life began a while ago…we were so busy with background noise that we forgot we are superstars and we didn’t hear someone yell ‘action!’
So here is Take 300. I am yelling “action!” Stars, (small stars and superstars), now is your time to shine.
Niti.
11.1.17 Tel-Aviv
[1] Psychophysiology defines three automatic reactions to threat (real or imaginary): fight, flight or free. Instincts with clear, physiological attributes that are immediately translated into feelings of distress and a need to defend oneself. Anything that makes us react like this triggers fear. From here the assumption that fear lies in the basis.
