Baby on a Skateboard

What if, when you were born, the first thing your family did was put a blindfold on you? You were told repeatedly that the blindfold is part of you, and it's a good part of you. Every time you questioned or tugged at the blindfold you were scolded and you felt unloved. You learned to scold yourself every time you even thought about touching the blindfold. You did this so often you forgot you were doing it and it just became a regular part of being alive.

The next thing your family did was strap you, belly-down, to a skateboard. Your legs were taped together and strapped tight to the rear of the skateboard. You were taught that moving around in the world meant pushing your hands against the ground so your wheels could move.

Your whole world then consisted of sounds and textures, all within a foot of the ground. You saw things horizontally. Interactions with people were bumpy and awkward because of the wheels and the unnaturalness of the whole setup, but no one knew it. On some level everyone was deeply uncomfortable.

And then one day, you got into a terrible accident and you got knocked off your board! Your blindfold slipped off and ripped down the side! Suddenly you were flooded with sensations you’d never known, colors and visuals. Your legs felt like two mobile things and they kicked this way at that. It was terrifying, fascinating, and disorienting.

The doctors helped build you a new skateboard and your family brought you a beautiful new blindfold, and you recovered.

But.

You didn't feel the same. Something was nagging at you, bugging you to learn more about it. What was that sensation in the eyes? What was all of that with the legs?

You signed up for a spiritual school, where they talked about walking and seeing, but it was impossible for you to understand. And yet your heart wanted to know more. You learned about the strings on the blindfold and how easily you could untie them if only you were brave enough. Sometimes you did untie it (though you were not sure how you did it), and sometimes you had unexplainable experiences that felt so right. But it was never long before you ran back to your blindfold and your skateboard. After all, your world was not made for walkers or seers, even though it was literally full of them.

What if all of this was true?

Would you be impatient with yourself for not knowing how to walk after just a couple of years at your spiritual school? Would you get down on yourself for still being in the dark, even though you know there's light out there? Or would you recognize that what you are attempting is not even remotely supported by anything except your spiritual school, and that society, your conditioning, and even your own mind, are deeply, concerningly ignorant? And that the only way for you to learn to walk or see is to be persistent, gentle, self-supportive, so, so loving?

Be nice to yourself. Taking a spiritual path, learning to see in new ways is not easy, and you are going to keep falling in the same traps until your wobbly legs can actually support you without help. This is natural and normal and right and fine.

It might take a lifetime, or more. You’re brave just for even trying.