Tuesday, February 13, 2007

The Million Me's in Me

Woke up frantically this morning at 4 AM. I'd been dreaming and in the dream I saw myself sectionalized on a series of shelves. There was me, the baby, looking for love from mom; there was another me, my father's son, looking for approval. There was me, the guy who tells tall tales to get attention; there was me, my brother's brother. Then there was me, the guy who has to apologize for the guy who tells the tall tales; then there was me, the dad, who is hoping he is doing the dad stuff right; then there was me, my dad's son, looking to him to see if I was doing the dad stuff right; then me, the man who feels invincible and next to that me was the me who is small and scared all the time. And there were a million me's and ayahuasca began to take some off the shelf to work on some of the me's I don't need anymore and I panicked because I knew that the overall me was constructed very carefully from all of those million me's, the me's who succeeded, the me's married to my failures; the me's who forgive me for being me; the me's who hate me.....and when I woke and realized that I was afraid of having any of the me's tampered with because I would never be put back together as me if any of the me's were moved or removed.
So I bolted from bed before the work could be done. But then, in a more rational moment, if that's what this is, I realize that at any given moment, doing any given action, there are thousands of those me's engaged. Some are encouraging me, some are embarrassed for me, some are in conflict with me. Like smoking: the biggest me's want to copy my father, who smoked. Other me's see the smoking me as a cool me. But other me's see me smoking as a chicken, and as a me who still is looking for approval for smoking from a father who died from smoking. And another me is a nasty boy who gets a kick out of making Chepa constantly repeat: You shouldn't be smoking in the house," a million times a month....
And that's just smoking. Imagine what I and you and all of us go through in terms of dealing with a million mes on a million little decisions daily???? No wonder I sometimes find myself unable to act decisively!!!!!
Probably not a great big insight but it sure seemed like one, seems like one, this second...Of course, a bigger issue lies underneath all of this: that's that ayahuasca wanted to eliminate some of the me's I no longer need. That's the real work that needs doing and the real work of vomiting while under the influence of ayahuasca. The elimination of the bile of our lives, the me's and us's we no longer need to carry around. But that always, which is why I am so afraid of it, forces a reconstruction of ourselves, and we're never the same afterwards. And the million me's of me very jealously guard the overall me. And it should, as it's taken a lifetime to construct me. Still, until some of the me's I no longer need are removed, I inhibit the growth of the overall me. But knowing that is a long way from permitting it to happen.

1 comment:

Phoenix said...

Hi Peter,

I used to live in a Gurdjieff study center. One of the main teachings of Gurdjieff was the multiple I's. I can attest to it myself. The idea was to observe all you multiple I's and if you could observe in the correct way long enough maybe you'd get a glimpse of real I. Here is a link comparing Gurdjieff to sufism. He was a mysterious character and wouldn't tell where is knowledge came from ubt he grew up and traveled extensively throughout sufi regions.
http://natheal.com/gurdjieffSufiConnection/gurdjieffSufiConnectionParallels.htm