by Beatrix Weyck
A few weeks ago I finished reading Nelson Mandela’s excellent autobiography. Even in his 27 years of prison he did not lose his vision—his belief that Africa will be a free country where all people, black and white, will create, co-operate and live together in peace. He knew it was a long path to freedom. There were many obstacles to overcome—all the prejudice, ideas and opinions of separation and hostility. With all the injustice done to him and his people he could very easily become revengeful, full of hate and anger and blame for his oppressors.
He says in his book: “I always knew that deep down in every human heart, there was mercy and generosity. No one is born hating another person because of the color of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human heart that its opposite. Even in the grimmest times in prison, when my comrades and I were pushed to our limits, I would see a glimmer of humanity in one of the guards, perhaps just for a second, but it was enough to reassure me and keep me going. Man’s goodness is a flame that can be hidden but never extinguished...I knew as well as I knew anything that the oppressor must be liberated just as surely as the oppressed.”
For seven years I have been in the Avatar network. By cleaning up my own personal stuff, letting go of blame and ‘poor me’ resentments, facing my inner victimizer and victim, all the love and compassion I had inside naturally arose. And since I had the tools to look beyond all beliefs and creations that separated me from being connected with my environment and the others, I was in touch with feeling infinite source with no separation. My goal was to be in that presence of no separation. The way to get there is to make the beliefs that separate us visible. So that’s what I have been doing these past years and I intend to keep going.
Perseverance was an important step. Faith and trust—being vulnerable enough to stop wanting to be right and learning to appreciate all the creations. Why should we appreciate things that separate? Because I and the other is one creation. The more I judge others, the more I feel separate from Self. Usually judgments trigger heavy reactions. And these reactions keep us stuck in the situation we don’t prefer to experience.
Is the answer now to stop judging? I don’t believe so. The power I see in Avatar is the end of all dogmatism, all shoulds and have to’s.
Avatar is about being deliberate about what you do and how you do it. Being deliberate puts you in contact with your own creative power. You know you can make a difference. By living deliberately, you don’t need to victimize yourself or others.
That’s my vision for the next ten years: to create lots of opportunities for people to become the designers of their own lives. To teach people to feel again, to become bigger than themselves, to have a look beyond all right-and-wrong games. To feel compassion for all suffering beings, nature, humans, animals, and to have the tools at hand to make a difference.
I am reminded of a beautiful scene in Bertolucci’s movie Siddhartha. On the day of Siddhartha’s final enlightenment, after he experienced all the darkness, the shadows and demons, his own reflection, he said, “You can’t fool me anymore, because I am myself.” Or, to say it in Jelaluddin Rumi’s words, the old Persian Sufi: “I lived at the edge of madness, eager to know the reasons, so I knocked. The door opens and I see myself standing inside, knocking!” As Harry says, the only difference between us is our beliefs.Leon Daester, one of my Avatar students, wrote after doing one of the exercises:I have become a pure witness who perceives everything, yet judges nothing.
All is without evaluation, neither positive nor negative, neither wrong nor right, neither good nor bad.
I hear everything, see everything, feel everything;
I smell everything, taste everything.
I love nothing, hate nothing.
All remains as it is.
That’s how I become still inside.
Yet all, all is alive and keeps changing.
It pulsates, vibrates, sings and resounds.
I stand still and watch.
I pull out the book of my life and turn page after page.
I look at the scenes where I was acting as perpetrator.
Guilty, not guilty don’t exist.
It is the way it is.
Nothing needs to change.
There is only peace and calmness everywhere.
It is this the ideal world,
And all that remains is the watcher.
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