A Loss of Understanding
A young man in his twenties had recently joined our group and was working on formulating his aim.
“Several bad things happened to me recently that led me to this work,” he said, “all of which were my own doing. I realized that if I want to stop being socially isolated and start genuinely connecting with others, I must stop being mean and selfish, and stop complaining about everything I disagree with. I must change a lot, perhaps even change entirely.”
“The prospect of the path that lies ahead of me fills me with shame, with anger, and with fear. Shame because of the person I have been until now; anger at having allowed myself to sink so low; and fear of what may come next.”
“It has become clear to me that unless I take an altogether different course, I will continue sinking down to deeper and darker depths. Therefore, my aim will be to use the tools of this teaching to alter my negative and self-destructive attitudes.”
We were all moved by this new practitioner’s sincerity and his understanding of the kind of effort he would need to make. As long as we blame our suffering on others we trap ourselves in victimhood, whereas once we take responsibility for our choices we acquire the ability to alter them. He had formulated his challenge and his aim well, which itself is half the solution.
However, not a month had passed before our young practitioner flipped and vehemently expressed quite opposite views. Out of the blue, he posted a notice to the community informing us that he was leaving. He said he had realized that the teaching was contrived; our group was a fraud and its practitioners were being deceived. From having isolated the source of his woes inside himself, the young man had relocated the causes of his suffering outside—in the teaching, in its deluded practitioners, and in me as its founder. We were now the problem; he was again the victim. After a brief period of clarity, the negative and self-destructive attitudes that he had wished to change had returned with a vengeance.
The shift was so abrupt that it unsettled us all. It is in the nature of group work that the loss of understanding in any one of its members impacts the rest, especially since we have shared with them our intimate observations and challenges. Moreover, negativity is contagious, and blatant accusations expressed by any one practitioner leave everyone else shaken and betrayed. We are challenged with reaffirming the validity of our own gains. We see that our moments of clarity cannot be taken for granted, that we must remain watchful in periods of doubt as well as in times of seeming certainty.
It is a painful lesson that must be learned, and how else if not through witnessing the consequences of a friend’s loss of understanding?