While spending time with a female with whom i am closely acquainted (difficult to stay away from the “friend” concept), a woman passed by. In her passing i felt a twinge of heightened emotion and energy – physical attraction. It lasted just a few seconds, and i found myself saying, “wow, that gal was really attractive.” To share on this level is part of my practice with the woman i was walking with.
A few weeks later while with the same female, we were talking about something, relationships i think, when she said, “oh that’s right, you like blondes.” What she said is of NO relevance – my reaction, on the other hand, is.
I became defensive and said some things to correct her and make her realize that i don’t “like” blondes and that she was making up a story about me, defining me based on one comment i made about a passing thought. It felt good to correct her and defend myself, but only for a moment. Then the true feeling surfaced, even before i had finished talking, and it felt yucky.
As i looked at the experience along with many other experiences where i was either defending or attacking (my defense above was actually an attack) and stripped each away, i recognized something i had not connected before – the GIFT lies not in awareness and looking at the feeling of defending, but rather, in the feeling that came a few seconds BEFORE the urge to defend.
In those few seconds, before she even finished talking, i was reacting to a thought. The thought is not clear to me and does not matter. The reaction does and my reaction was one of feeling diminished, limited, and ordinary. It was the perceived need to get rid of that feeling which drove me to defend, and seeing that, looking at that, is the true gift that will set me free because my being diminished is just a story. In my essence, i can not be anything but pure, innocent and invulnerable.
