Not sure why, but my life has always included people with addictions. I have turned this facet of human nature over and over, but I think I finally understand it. My first dance partner who is now ninety has lived through addiction and mentored others for addiction abuse for over twenty years. He and his wife have fielded my questions over the years, but a recent situation has encouraged me to examine it all again.
Social drinking to dependency (usually emotionally/mentally) to addiction (usually physically, mentally, and emotionally): the progression to addiction. Yes, drugs and alcohol are potentially progressive by nature.
Hearing first hand experiences from this wise, self-examined person, we decided that substance abuse is like hitting the mute button on life. Instead of dealing with life, a time out is generated in an artificial way. He has begun to meditate in a self help group. The inward walk is moving him towards some unresolved areas even though he has been sober for a very long time. How inspiring to talk with a couple who at ninety and eighty-nine who continue to examine life, themselves, and an inward state.
His wife has taken refuge in the inner voice since she was seven years old. It gave her the strength and wisdom to see her husband through addiction and to change patterns from her own challenged childhood.
Profound for me to speak with someone who has a similar scientific, inquiring approach to living and has been guided by a voice. She spoke of never feeling alone and part of something bigger then words. The desire for hitting the mute button was never a part of her life. She wasn't ever trying to avoid life, since the relationship with the voice always helped to guide her and never feel alone. As her husband witnessed us speaking about it, his comment was that he would like a part of what we were discussing, because of the depth of loneliness he has experienced.
Maybe this is the difference in one's perspective that leads to the need for a mute button? What a gift to uncover more of what lies inside the human condition.
Taking it another step farther, I see how it relates to capacity building which gives one a greater ability to walk in the insanity plan. Pranam as the tears well up in gratitude for what I am learning about my true nature: Source as the fabric of Absolute Truth and Love. The dark star-filled environment that I had the privilege of experiencing with Pahari Baba enveloped me as I examined the connection. Profound to understand this point of separation and how deep the root is for what happens as our lives unfold. More concretization of what has unfolded in the past thirty years has taken me full circle to the baby locked in the metal box: a point of transition that awakened will and guidance from something beyond myself. Only now I understand it was the Self. I had called it the alien until recently when Gurudev encouraged me to use this as my inner guidance.
The ability to love all from one place while navigating the eruption of ego into a more exteriorized place is making sense. Setting boundaries is coming from a less personally distorted place which lends itself to less emotional twirling, falling down, and standing up. The morning job will be drawing to a close, but it has been remarkable for helping me to better understand the human insanity plan--intensively. Witnessing the condition of alcohol distortion between two lovers has also been a tremendous teacher.
As one door closes, yet another one opens...
