Seeing - Shifting Mental Perceptions

There are times when I am swept away by restlessness, this odd feeling of being trapped in the ordinary day to day existence of life as I currently perceive it. I was listening to Stephen Hawking talk about "wormholes" a few nights ago - short cuts in outer space that allow matter to cut through the restraints of ordinary time. It would be fun to jump into a wormhole when I feel edgy like this, to beam myself all around space and time at will. From my new vantage point I would look back at where I am now and see things afresh.

It occurs to me that I am constantly formulating the people around me in my mind. They exist as entities outside myself of course - everyone exists outside all of us, but to an extent, we also invent those we encounter in our minds to suit our own perception of reality. Our current perceptions of others can be pretty inaccurate. Especially when we find ourselves in an intense relationship, head over heels in love, or in a power struggle with someone of the ilk of a mother-in-law or boss, it's tough to stay neutral.

Even labeling people as they pertain to us - my husband, my daughter, my mother, my teacher - skews our perception of them. I wonder if there is way of going past those inaccurate, quick perceptions of everyone and everything without jumping through a wormhole ala Stephen Hawking. I wonder how often we really look at other people, and see them as they are, without judgment, without the mental gloss. The correct perception is one where the inherent perfection of everything is evident. The correct perception is one where we shut up enough to live.

The other day I was convinced, if only for a few moments, that I was trapped in the ladies room at the doctor's office. The room had two doors - one leading out to the hallway that opened easily, and another one, on the other side that was locked, probably a storage closet for cleaning supplies. I was in a such a rush coming out of the stall, that I turned the wrong way, and became convinced that the locked door was the way out, that I was somehow trapped in there. There I was pounding at the supply closet door, annoyed, frustrated, when really the whole time I had just gotten twisted around somehow. The exit was there all along, completely unimpeded, but I was unaware of its existence. I even got out my cell phone at one point to call for help. It was all silly, but also revealing about how we can misperceive our world.

We've become confused about other people and what's happening. It's important for us to readjust that confusion to the point of truth. It's all mental, how we see our families, our friends, our lovers, along with what we expect of them. One function of a wormhole - and I'm convinced that like the open exit door in that women's room, wormholes do exist - is to help us realize that we don't need to feel constrained by time or space, that we have been viewing everything around us in our daily world through an inaccurate lens.

Once we realize our own misperception, the door easily opens to the fantastical, potent reality that is. That is when we can exit the dark world of our own mental judgments into someplace lovely.

(The photograph was taken by the talented Pat Olchefski-Winston at our book signing at the Ojai Yoga Crib last weekend. It's hard to see the universe as anything but lovely there.)