alejandro jodorowsky – Mystery of Existence

I am the others, the others are me
– Alejandro Jodorowsky in Jodorowsky’s Dune

I can find several ways it’s true.

The first two are more loose and poetic. The next three are something we can check out for ourselves in our direct noticing. And the last one either depends on our definition or is an assumption – at least for me now.

POETIC & SENSE OF US

We can mean it in a loose and poetic way.

I have a sense of fellowship and a sense of us.

So I am you and you are me in the sense that we are all in it together.

SYSTEMS VIEW

We are all part of and expressions of larger social and ecological systems.

We are expressions and parts of a larger whole, just like cells are part of a larger organism.

We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe.

In this sense too, I am you and you are me.

MIRROR

I see in others what I know from myself, whether I know I know it from myself or not.

I can take any story I have about someone else (or anything in the world), turn it to myself, and find genuine and specific examples of where it’s true.

You are my mirror. You are me.

I am your mirror. I am you.

This is something I can find for myself by exploring projections. One of my favorite ways is through inquiry and especially The Work of Byron Katie.

SENSE FIELDS

To me, the world happens within and as my sense fields.

To me, any experience is found within sight, sound, smell, taste, sensations, thoughts, and so on.

To me, you happen within and as my sense fields.

Here too, you are me. And to you, I am you.

This is something I can explore and find for myself, by noticing my sense fields and how any experience happens within them. Traditional Buddhist sense field explorations are especially good for this.

WHAT I AM

In one sense, I am this human self in the world. That’s an assumption that’s not wrong and it works pretty well.

And when I look closer at what I am in my own experience, I find something else.

I find I more fundamentally am capacity for the world and anything that happens in my sense fields. I am what allows any and all experience, including what I think of as you.

I am what the world, to me, happens within and as. I am what you, to me, happen within and as.

If I want to put labels on it, I can say that to me, I am consciousness and the world happens within and as this consciousness I am.

In a very literal sense, you are me. And to you, I am you, whether you notice or not.

This is also something I can check out and find for myself, perhaps most effectively through forms of inquiry like the Big Mind process and Headless experiments, and also Basic Meditation.

SPIRIT

We can take this one step further.

If we call all of existence Spirit, the divine, or God, we can say that we are all aspects and expressions of Spirit.

I am you and you are me.

tagged: alejandro jodorowsky, big mind process, headless way, projections, quote, sense field exploration, sense fields, shadow, shadow work, the work of byron katie, who and what we are

Continued from previous posts…. These posts are collections of brief notes on society, politics, and nature. I sometimes include a few short personal notes as well.

From The Incal series by Alejandro Jodorowsky and Moebius.

Jodorowsky & real imitation. The foreword to the current hardcover edition of The Incal mentions the many who have stolen elements from the story or the visuals. Of course, any good artist “steals” but some apparently have lifted whole segments out of The Incal for their own work.

For me, it’s a reminder of different types of imitation. One form of imitation is to steal – or be inspired by – elements of the final product. Another is is to imitate where it came from. To find in ourselves the courage, authenticity, realness, imagination, and so on that brought it into life. That takes longer and is ultimately far more rewarding.

Jodorowsky & shamelessness. On that topic, I admire Alejandro Jodorowsky for the range and diversity of his work (see his Wikpedia article). How did it come about? I imagine a big part of it was shamelessness, in the best sense of the word. He seems to be someone who is real, authentic, courageous, does what he is drawn to, and follows his guidance. Perhaps most importantly, he seems to not be afraid to create and and put it out in the public.

He probably has fears and doubts as we all do, but he has worked through it or does it in spite of these fears and doubts. And many love him for it because it’s what we want for ourselves.

The Incal & dreams. I haven’t read all the books in the Incal series yet, but I get the impression that these stories are like dreams. They are full of archetypes and archetypal processes and dynamics, and they are free-flowing like dreams.

Often, stories that consciously use archetypes and dream symbols feel clinical. They feel thought out more than something that grows more organically out of who and what we are. Jodorowsky seems to be able to allow these stories to grow organically without pruning and guiding them too much by intellectual understanding (although I am sure that’s there too).

tagged: alejandro jodorowsky, culture, society

Tag: alejandro jodorowsky

Alejandro Jodorowsky: I am the others, the others are me

Reflections on society, politics and nature XXI

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