Professional Wrestling as a Metaphor for Life

I enjoy looking at professional wrestling as a metaphor for life.
There are several reasons for this, but for now I want to focus on one in particular: the gimmick.

The term ‘gimmick’ has two usages in wrestling: the first usage refers to any particular wrestler’s character, for example, whether this character is a good guy (baby-face) or a bad guy (heel), and what kind of baby-face or heel they are. Are they a narcissist, a bully, a materialist, a patriot, an angel, a demon, an animal, an intellectual, a technician, a brawler…?
Of course, the name, the costume, and how they perform all contribute to their particular gimmick, and every gimmick is an individual’s unique play on a generic gimmick which has been done over and over.
The second usage refers to staged incidents which take place in order to generate ‘heat’ for a particular wrestler, or in order to build up a feud between two wrestlers. It’s the storyline which is intended to build towards the climactic encounter between the two.

So if we look at pro-wrestling as an amplification of life, we can look at each person, or persona, as a gimmick. We can then continue to look at each situation, or drama in a person’s life as a gimmick. A good recent example would be to look at Lance Armstrong as a gimmick, and each dramatic incident which has occured through the course of his career as a gimmick. The ‘media/lawyer TV show’ is continually drawing ratings from this pattern of singling out someone and amplifying the morality play of their life on camera in order to generate heat, so that both the lawyers involved, and the media can profit.

On an individual level, when we meditate, it’s a bit like going backstage, and seeing the drama of our lives as it is. It’s a time to shed the gimmick. This isn’t to say that the gimmick is something to be destroyed, but the more conscious we become of it, the more we control we can take of our individual gimmicks, and the more we can recognise a stressful situation for what it is; a trap for your attention, or something to make you forget your connectedness with one and all, in the same way that a good wrestling match can make the audience forget that these arch-enemies are actually just playing at being arch-enemies in order to trap the audience’s attention, and that they may indeed be good friends backstage.

When we first gain a degree of consciousness, our first reaction can be to want to wake everyone else up, but this would be like a wrestler stopping in the middle of a match and yelling out, “It’s all fake! It’s all just a show! Go home, everyone!”
That would be didactic, and would spoil the game. In fact, you could say that the preacher, or new-age guru, or monk, is just another gimmick, anyway 😉

Enjoy the show, take part in the show, develop your gimmick, but go backstage for half an hour to an hour each day to prevent the feeling of being overcome by the drama.

Freedom: Why it can’t be taken away

What is freedom? Freedom is a choice. It’s plausable to think that our destiny is pre-determined, and that choice is merely an illusion. But I submit that this argument would only hold up if we were only talking about physical and emotional actions and reactions. Even though we have no choice in regards to these, we still have the choice to silence our minds and open up to the direct experience of life as it occurs, without judging what we perceive or do.

An existentialist allegory for freedom is to think of the man standing on the cliff edge; he has the choice of whether to move to safety, which is the predictable course of action, or to jump off the cliff to his death. These are just emotional and physical actions or reactions though, neither of which will serve to free the mind itself. If he chooses to jump off the cliff, he would miss out on true freedom just as must as if he were to take the more predictable move to safety, or for that matter, stand on the cliff edge with a confused and indecisive state of mind.

His truest freedom though, is his inherent capability to open up to the underlying energy, will, or force of life, which I prefer to refer to merely as the silent ‘H’, due to it being the very essence, or breath of life, which is beyond words. This is what makes the meditative arts so crucial for individual freedom. Meditation could best be thought of as a game, or even THE ultimate game, which offers the ultimate prize of bliss through direct experience of the moment free of judging or interpretations which have been imprinted in our minds through the course of our domestication for the purpose of categorising our experience and our idea of ourselves and others.

Even the concept of freedom as opposed to captivity/slavery is there to make us conform to society’s rules. The non-dualistic experience of life is what I refer to as UniThou: one you, unique, yet familiar, limitless, yet constrained.

Left and Right Hemispheres of the Brain

When the frequencies of the left and right hemispheres of the brain resonate, we get what’s know as hemispheric synchronisation, which allows for the experience of UniThou.

LEFT HEMISPHERE:

Logical
Responds to verbal instructions
Problem solves by logically and sequentially looking at the parts of things
Language
Objective
Critical thinking
Numbers
Reasoning
Controls feelings
Prefers ranked authority structures

Sequential/heirarchical/euclidean space
Is a splitter: distinction important
Is logical, sees cause and effect

The myth of progress in sequential time
“Line of sight” or “point of view”

RIGHT HEMISPHERE:

Intuitive
Acoustic/audio
Recognizing faces
Expressing emotions
Subjective
Music
Reading emotions
Color
Images
Intuition
Creativity

presence/process/flow
“playing it by ear”

The problem we have today, is that our left hemispheres are dominating. To experience Unithou, there needs to be smooth communication between the two hemispheres, which tends to require a medium, such as a meditative art, an technological stimulant (such as cinema, theatre, concert, sports event/entertainment, performance art, dance party etc), being among nature, communicative interaction, such as conversation, making love etc, or a chemical stimulant, because these all have the potential to bring about a flavour of “H” (which I previously linked to the old term “Holy Spirit”, or “breath of life”). This allows the right brain the time that it needs to be nourished, so that it can, in daily life, come into balance with the left.

H has its masculine and feminine aspects, “Him” (active, positive, brightness, heaven, sunshine, fire, hardness, male, dryness, day-time, upward seeking, restless, producing, hot, even numbers, and dominant aspects of things.) and “Her” (passive, negative, darkness, earth, cloudy, water, softness, female, moisture, night-time, downward seeking, slowness, consuming, cold, odd numbers, and docile aspects of things.).
Whichever aspect of H comes more naturally to a person will have a big influence on which medium works best for them, but that doesn’t mean they can’t learn to heighten their understanding of other media as well to enrich the uniqueness of their experience.
Some of the best mathematicians have been shown to have smooth communication between right and left.

Who or What am I?

To meditate on the question “what am I?” is to become familiar with Unithou, in the sense that we can break the word into its two components: the ‘Uni’ which is the one, unmovable, peaceful, enlightened, detached and joyous axis, or perhaps ‘source’ which is without any identifiable source. It is the observer, or the all seeing ‘eye’ which doesn’t judge and has no name, no history, and no future. If it has an aim, it is to experience itself in its many dimensions, or you could say, to encounter, or discover itself.

To do this though, it requires a vessel, which we call the ‘thou’, meaning the familiar, the personality, the body, the movement, the sufferer, the judge, the aspirer, the emotional being. In order for the experience of Unithou to occur, both aspects of the “I am” need to be present: the timeless and the temporal, and when they do come together, the uniquely indescribable event occurs – indescribable due to its multi dimensional nature. This is followed by the agreeable division of ‘Uni’ and ‘thou’, in order to provide for the possibility of another unique event – the same as, but different from the previous – so that the spiralling may continue.

It’s important to mention that Unithou is not something which can be forced, or even strategized; all one can do is to remove the obstacles to it, which is what the 21st Century Commandments are designed to do.

You’ll all be familiar with the terms “the father, the son, and the holy spirit”. Here, the archetypal mother/father could be translated as the “Uni”, whereas the son/daughter could be thought of as the “thou”. The holy spirit, or the breath of life, and the medium through which Uni and thou can communicate would be the silent “H”.

The ‘Uni’ could also be thought of as the master, and the ‘thou’ as the student, while the (preferably meditative) work, or art being taught could be the medium. Here’s a famous example: the master/father(-figure) and the student/(metaphorical) son (or in this case ‘san’!).

Norah Jones: “Sunrise” and “Wake Me Up”

I like to post links to art that communicates what I mean by the vital energy ‘H’.
Just simply absorb this:

The Problem with Transcendence

These are the definitions of the word “Transcendence” taken from thefreedictionary.com:

1. Surpassing others; preeminent or supreme.
2. Lying beyond the ordinary range of perception: “fails to achieve a transcendent significance in suffering and squalor” (National Review).
3. Philosophy
a. Transcending the Aristotelian categories.
b. In Kant’s theory of knowledge, being beyond the limits of experience and hence unknowable.
4. Being above and independent of the material universe. Used of the Deity

In Unithou, the higher and lower plains exist in our minds, not in some ideal imaginary realm where a deity presides and presumes to judge our actions. This imaginary realm is often thought to be a plateau of sorts, which we’ll reach at some point and won’t have to try any more. Some traditions talk of reincarnation as being a return to the material world, due to one not having earned the privilege yet to reside on the transcendental plateau permanently: thus, they return here, life after life, until they are deemed ready to remain in the transcendental realm.

I once had a talk with a Hare Krishna fellow who was handing out free books about reincarnation to people on the street. He said to me “Do you really want to come back to this world, man? I definitely don’t!”. I tried to encourage him to look further, and feed his mind by reading other philosophies besides the Bhagavad Gita, and he replied “Don’t you think I’ve had time to look, man?”. So then I tried to explain that he was being mislead, and that Krishna was present here and now. He said “Oh, so you’ve seen Krishna have you?”, I said “Yes, I have.” (the word Krishna translates as “all attractive”), he said “So what did he look like?”, to which I replied “You!”. He shook his head and turned his back on me. His belief in a transcendental deity blinds him of his own unique divinity, and has him all the time looking outside of himself for the experience of bliss. His mantras and meditations are designed to help him escape this earthly realm as much as possible in his day-to-day life.

He believes that people are superior to animals, even though they actually do a better job of living in harmony with nature than us. He has a shaved head, with one of those rat’s tails at the back, and follows the teachings of a painted face freak. He’s looked for the truth, and found a bunch of people dressed in old indian garb with a book/doctrine which has simply reprogrammed him into a different kind of subservience. Their greatest trick is to tell us that it is not a religion!

Unithou is a religion of presence and positivity, designed to help us recognise our own unique divinity, and the divinity present within others, as well as to encourage vitality and individual liberation.

“We could say that meditation doesn’t have a reason or doesn’t have a purpose. In this respect it’s unlike almost all other things we do except perhaps making music and dancing. When we make music we don’t do it in order to reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition. If that were the purpose of music then obviously the fastest players would be the best. Also, when we are dancing we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor as in a journey. When we dance, the journey itself is the point, as when we play music the playing itself is the point. And exactly the same thing is true in meditation. Meditation is the discovery that the point of life is always arrived at in the immediate moment.” (Alan Watts).

Meditative Arts – What, Why, and Which?

Firstly, just what is meant by the term “meditative”?
I quote the following definition from medicinenet.com: “Meditation: A self-directed practice for relaxing the body and calming the mind. Most meditative techniques have come to the West from Eastern religious practices, particularly India, China, and Japan, but can be found in all cultures of the world. Until recently, the primary purpose of meditation has been religious, although its health benefits have long been recognized. It is now being further explored as a way of reducing stress on both mind and body.

Studies have found that regular meditation can reduce healthcare use; increase longevity and quality of life; reduce chronic pain; reduce anxiety; reduce high blood pressure; reduce serum cholesterol level; reduce substance abuse; increase intelligence-related measures; reduce post-traumatic stress syndrome in Vietnam veterans; and lower blood cortisol levels initially brought on by stress.”

Meditation is also a key way of developing consciousness, and recognising the patterns/phases which the mind habitually goes through, due to it’s prior programming. So it has a flow-on effect which helps us appreciate and take control of our lives.

In Unithou, the term “meditative arts” is a broad one, and it is left to the individual to trial and choose the kind that suits them best. They range in degrees from hard and vigorous to gentle and flowing to almost completely still, some systems including a variety of styles to cover all these categories. Meditative arts can also be creative arts, such as Haiku poetry, or calligraphy, photography, dance etc.

A good guideline to chose the most appropriate would be to think to yourself “which aspect of intelligence is lacking in me?”, as well as your physical condition, which could rule out doing a vigorous martial art. If it is physical well-being that is lacking, a moving meditation such as taichi, chigong, or yoga would be the most suitable. With chigong and yoga, there are many different styles to chose from, but the great thing about the information age is that you can research them easily enough, then it comes down to simply trying them out, but don’t fall into the trap of going along to class a few times and deciding “no, I don’t like this.”. Give it several months, and keep in mind that there will be growing pains to go through to improve your physical well-being.

If you already have a good physical constitution, you might prefer the challenge of martial arts such as Kung Fu, or Aikido, etc. If you exceed in the cognitive/mathematical intelligence, you may prefer to look at something artistic. Still, or sitting meditation is the most common type of meditation, and the techniques are often very simple, but not necessarily so easy. When the body is still and the eyes are closed, all sorts of thoughts want to jump up and take away your focus, so the still forms can actually be the most challenging.

MORNING MANTRA

Daytime is the radiant
manifestation of “hhh“,
transmited by way of the sun:
I choose not to waste it
through worry or regret,
and I surrender the urge
to demean it.

I attempt to intuit
instead of interpret
the fresh phenomena
of experience.

I crave and devour
each challenge
that presents itself,
be it seemingly mundane
or pivotal.

Health, humour, and meditation;
cleansing subservient imprints,
and releasing majestic Unithou!

This day is the first and last of its kind;

I bask in its fleeting uniqueness.

Questions and Answer time:

Q – Do you believe in a higher power?
A – I beleive in a relativity, so yes, I believe in a higher power, but no highest power. Just as I believe in a lower power, which I call subservience. Subservience is the result of domesticity, which is a necessary phase, but the higher power is brought about by the evolution of the individual recognising and nourishing her/his own divinity (uniqueness).

Q – Do you believe that the universe is a series of mistakes?
A – I believe the universe is both systematic and serendipitous in nature.

Q – So, if I said to you that there is an all-pervading force ordering and controlling things, would you agree?
A – Yes, but I would add that this force is multi-dimensional, just like us. It gets excited, it gets stressed, it gets tired, loses, and regains control. It perceives and experiences itself in so many, many ways, and in so doing, encounters itself and evolves through its many avatars.

Q – What do you call this force?
A – I call it “H”, pronouced “…hhh…”. Not that it really has a name, or image, or sound in its ethereal essence, but it manifests in the corporeal realm as energy of varying frequencies, detectable by the senses.

Q – How does H relate to Unithou?
A – When the individual becomes aware of H, (s)he can direct it with the mind through focused mind activity/intent and body postures/movements. That’s one of the reasons why regular meditation is crucial – for connecting with and storing/cultivating H, but no particular style is taught, as the individual needs to chose what suits him/her best.
H is the essence, the food, the water, the breath, and the blood of Unithou, seeking to become ever more aware of itself in order to evolve.