Removing Your
Mask
by
Barry Long
 A long, long time ago, when
human beings were not so fixed in their physical bodies as they are today, there
lived a man (or was it a woman?) who made for himself a marvelous mask - a mask
that could pull many faces. The man used to put on the mask and entertain
himself by suddenly accosting people and watching their reactions. Sometimes the
mask would be laughing, sometimes crying, sometimes grimacing and scowling. His
victims were always shocked at the sight of such an extraordinary, unnatural,
unfamiliar face - even when it was smiling. Whether they laughed or cried made
no difference to him. All he wanted was the excitement of their reactions. He
knew he was himself behind the mask. He knew he was the joker - and that the
joke was on them.
Masking Yourself
At first, he'd pop out with
the mask on a couple of times a day. Then, as he got used to the excitement and
wanted more, he began leaving the mask on all day. Finally, he saw no need to
take it off at all - and slept in it.
The biggest load
you're carrying in your life is your personality - the strain of pretense.
For years, the man wandered
through the land enjoying himself behind the mask. Then one day he awoke,
feeling a feeling he'd never felt before - he felt lonely, cut-off, something
missing. Jumping up in alarm he stepped out in front of a beautiful woman - and
immediately he fell in love with her. But the woman screamed and ran away,
shocked by the frightening, unfamiliar face.
"Stop," he cried, "It's
not me!" wrenching at the mask to tear it off. But it was him. The mask
wouldn't come off. It was stuck to his flesh. It had become his face. The man,
through his fabulous mask, was the first person to enter this unhappy world.
Time went by. No matter how
hard he tried to tell everyone what a disaster he'd brought on himself, no one
would believe him. No one was interested in listening anyway, because they'd all
copied him. They'd all put on masks of their own - to get the new excitement of
playing at being what they were not. Like him, they'd all become the mask.
How the man eventually put a
stop to the masquerade and returned to his joyous being, is the finale of the
story; for all fables must have a happy ending. However, only when you, the
reader, are joyous and free of unhappiness now (which is any moment) will the
story truly come to an end. For you are the man or woman in the mask.
The Personal Mask
The mask you are wearing is
your personality. Look in the bathroom mirror - that's it. Watch the face you
pull. Sometimes approving; often disapproving. You can't really believe it's
you. So you look in every passing mirror, even shop windows, to reassure
yourself and confirm it's YOU. Sometimes, you even get the weird, irrational
feeling of wanting to strip off the mask, don't you? This is not uncommon. It's
just that people don't like to talk about it; it sounds silly. But it's not so
silly, is it? - when you start being honest.
The biggest load you're
carrying in your life is your personality - the strain of pretense. Keeping it
up weighs you down and sucks the life out of you. You blame so many things for
the feeling of heaviness and lack of life. You blame your work, your
relationships, your diet, your problems. And yet it's your personality that has
cut you off from your natural joy and vibrancy.
The personality makes you
worried and emotional. It's the cause of your moods and self-doubt, your
depressions and times of misery. It confuses your mind. It's fearful of the
future and guilty or regretful of the past. It gets listless, bored and restless
with the present. It's the unsuspected shadow that slides in between you and
your partner. It's the cunning and knowing in the eyes. It lives off every kind
of stimulus, good and bad, depression and excitement. And it's utterly terrified
of being found out - discovered as the phoney and spoiler it is.
Do you recognize any of
these symptoms in yourself? Then you're ready to begin dismantling the
personality. I say dismantle because the personality is a `mantle', a cloak. And
you've thrown the mantle of the personality around you, to shield you from the
nastiness of the world and the hurtfulness of people.
You have made the
personality your protector. You have handed over much of your authority. So the
personality jumps to your defense immediately when you feel hurt, threatened or
criticized. It hits out for you with piercing or bludgeoning words. Sometimes
you wince at its violence and insensitivity. But then it's your champion, your
defender. So you meekly go along with its often appalling behavior, and make
excuses for it to yourself. The wily protector, given absolute power, becomes
the absolute dictator. And you despair of ever being free.
The truth is, you have no
need of this protection. The personality is like a bully at school whose gang
you once joined to be on the safe side. After you've grown up he comes back and
convinces you that you still need him. He's able to do this because, without
knowing it, you harbor all the pain of yesterday - the old fears and hurts of
your childhood, your youth and adult life. The bully, knowing your fear, won't
leave you alone. And you're terrified to lose his protection.
Notwithstanding this, the
personality does have its place and role. It makes a rotten master, but is a
good servant. The servant must no longer be allowed to run your life. It's
fouled it up long enough.
Everything you perceive as
wrong with the world is the result of someone's personality. In fact, the world
itself was constructed by personality's ignorance. That's why the world is such
a cruel, exploitative and dishonest place, compared with the beauty and
integrity of the earth and nature. Just as the personality lives off you, and
drains your resources, so the world is exhausting the earth's resources.
Developing Character
Behind every personality,
behind every mask, is a character. Character is your God-given uniqueness.
Character is what you have to return to more consciously in yourself - the
character of your joyous being behind the personality. Everybody without
exception has character. The personality so often obscures and deprives you of
the pleasure of your character, but this lovable or admirable character appears
when the personality is no longer active, when the frontal awareness is
connected directly with the flame of innocence. The man or woman is then seen in
a different light; the unique character shines forth, and we feel pleased or
privileged to be in their company.
The stress of the
personality arises out of the terrible contradiction of trying to hold on to
existence, while the life that you are lets go every moment. Life is ceaseless
movement. Everything now is different in some way to what it was yesterday.
Why don't we move like life,
with the speed of love that lets go every moment? The answer is in the two words
life and existence. Life is in existence but existence is not life. Life is new
every moment. Existence also should be new every moment, but we hold on to it
and it becomes painful. If you don't hold on to existence, you are the life in
it, new every moment. Then the two become a harmony. Then being is joyous.
The harmonious interchange
between life within and existence without depends on you keeping your psyche
free-flowing. The personality clogs the psychic system which is naturally ever
moving. The personality freeze-frames our existence. We've freeze-framed our
houses, our possessions, our children; and made them `mine'. We hang on to them
as though they'd disappear if we don't cling to them. It's all due to the
insecure personality that feels it must either hold on or lose its identity. So
we fight people or countries to hold on to what we have. But life as we see it
around us, behind all the personable people and their personal problems, holds
on to nothing.
Time To Energize
So now we come to the
crucial question. How can you learn to let go, and be life that is new every
moment? How do you start to live joyously? The answer is you have to get more
energy.
The remarkable thing is that
all the energy you require is already in you now. But it's being wasted by your
personality. There is only so much energy in your system, your body. It's not
unlimited, but there is sufficient to enable you to realize the truth; to return
you to the joyous life behind the mask - your original, vast and untroubled
state of being.
|
