The Poser & the Watcher
If you’re a poser!
The last few weeks for me, have been nothing short of a ride down childhood memory lane. Possibly to finally surrender an old story and rebirth something new in the same space. Because so much is different. Not changed, I won’t say that. It’s all just new behind the same faces. As a new born, I’m told I was born just the way I am today. Long nails and long hair 😂. As a baby, I’m told I’d be lost in my own world for hours at a stretch. I could be in one position for hours, without a squeak, unlike other babies. Maybe I was meditating.
Now as a child of 5 years or so, I remember, standing in front of the mirror for hours and acting like everyone of authority I knew. My mother to start with, acting like she’s in office. Acting like she’s at home. Then my teachers, and of course all the Bollywood actresses. All these imaginary stories that I’d play out with my twin cousin 😁. He was just a couple months older to me, I look back now and feel grateful for him. He always agreed to play the secondary part in my story. We’re all the main character in our stories, aren’t we? But he agreed to be ordinary, and that was extraordinary. Interestingly, I’m to meet him next month as my travels continue, as so will this story. The Poser & the Watcher!
The thing is we’re all actors. In this play called life, we’re all actors, who see life, a play, from our character’s perspective. A child who knows at the age of 5 that ‘I’ love to act, to pose, to entertain, to pretend; is really just being honest and truthful to his nature. He is really enjoying life. When all the children around me were already wanting to ‘become’ the doctors & engineers in the stories; I was already an actor in the story.
Life’s a play
You’d think that after knowing all my life, that I’d want to ‘become’ an actor, and preparing for it; it’d be an easy ride. It wasn’t and it wasn’t meant to be. Even as a child, I remember being a sort of risk taker. I’d take risks on whatever I’d wanna experience. Not necessarily on everything my friends were experiencing. But I think what kept me detached from fear doubt guilt, shame etc of my choices, was this ability to take complete responsibility for my actions. Essentially, my acting.
I never seemed to need anything or anyone outside of me to justify my experience. Good or bad, it’s just an experience. I was acting essentially. Action is acting. The doing. The doer. It’s who I grabbed from my immediate outer reality, I thought I was. With time I remembered that I couldn’t become an actor, ‘Coz I already am an actor, a poser.
Now, since the big Bollywood dream went to shit. I gotta be doing something with my life. Those around me always believed in me a lot more than I believed in myself. I believed in them. 😊. I started playing around with producing some little content here and there, which I didn’t like or even enjoy. Initially, the smallest hiccups, and I’d be in tears. I really have my ex to thank on this one.
One fine day, during a breakdown I was experiencing, he asked me, ‘what do you want?’. Naturally, I said, ‘I don’t want to do this. I want to act.’ And he said something that, I’m not sure even he realizes, changed my life. He said, ‘then act. Act like a producer.’ And I really do see upon reflection, that I acted my way to it. Yes I learnt my way to it too but really I was just acting. The learning happened on its own for me to play my part. Life really is a play. And the ego, is the poser. It will be given only what it needs for the part.
Must Watch
Now the ego, the poser will always have its own story in mind. Even if the story meant to be told through me is bigger, more interesting than the one my poser wants to say; ‘I’ am stuck on my story. And to make it happen ‘I’ will fight to protect the ‘narrative’. This is all the outer reality though. In my outer world I know, ‘I’ am an actor. But an actor with no watcher, viewer, observer, admirer, critic; is useless no? That is what the outward Focused mind perceives. It is always looking for a watcher outside. It has denied, negated a whole side of reality. The inner reality. There is a watcher, a viewer, an observer in the inner reality. Watching everything but not admiring or critiquing. That part is left to the ego, the false, the mask, the face, the actor, the poser.
The watcher only watches. Without judgement, without attachment, it watches everything, everyone. At first, it watches with the poser, as the poser. All there is to watch, on the outside. That same watcher can watch the poser in me too. So called ‘Love’ had happened to me before but then ‘True Love’ happened only once so far. It first awakened the watcher in me. I hadn’t seen it but I knew something was watching and that this was different, ‘Coz the experience was otherworldly. I was seeing something in him. Something of the beyond, something of the divine. It wasn’t even him but this divine that I was seeing. Once you see someone as divine, there’s no way to Un-see it. You’ve seen their highest potential.
This I realized very recently. I felt and saw so much darkness around him, but that divine light was still there. Burning bright. What I see in him is potential. The potential that may or may not be realized in this life time. Potential that is in everyone. For reasons best known to existence, I was to see it in him. It was meant to be that way. I was so intrigued. So I watched. And as I watched, I started to realize in me, the potential I was seeing in him.
Essentially, I was seeing his watcher. My watcher was seeing his watcher. The watcher later started watching me. And from that came the introspection, the reflection. The poser started to transform to that which was watching it. Not the object of my love. Not him. His light. The divine. That watcher, the mystic, the observer; is ‘it’. The poser started to become the watcher.
Must enjoy all the way
The moment the poser, the ego, what I thought of as the ‘I’, saw the watcher; the game really changed for me. There was no way to un-see what I had already seen. The actor had found its truest fan. One who will unconditionally watch, without judgement. I found what I was seeing in my beloved. I found my own ‘calm in the chaos’.
Over the past six months of vipassna, I’ve learnt that it is essentially about watching. It is ‘the’ method of meditation, as they say. I’ve experienced that there is a very different kind of detachment that arises by just, watching. One where you’re constantly observing, watching yourself, without being attached to any part of it. You are there, free to love, free to want, free to desire; but you are free from it all. You are just enjoying a character. It is a great play of life unfolding before me.
Then life doesn’t really remain about achievement. It can’t, Because it is all just a play. Then all that matters is experience. The one who watches life as he watches a play, an act; cannot live but in the experience of it. The rest doesn’t matter. And somehow gets taken care of. The thing is the poser too awakens someday to the fact that’s been hidden in plain sight. All achieving minds are running towards a seat that many are running towards. Only one will get to sit on it. Achievement is for the exceptions. The ones who will be used as examples to pull the rest into the race. To promote the idea that ‘we can be an exception too.’ An experience, on the contrary, is free for all.
What is sanyas really? Many ask me. It is another act of the poser. A maroon robe, a mala around the neck, dancing to the tunes of the divine. What is it? It is an act. Another face. One that says I celebrate the experience of life. I’m not here to achieve anything. One that wants to be the watcher. The poser is the ego. The ego wants to achieve all that it wants. Now it’s bound to want to master the watcher, the being, the non-achiever!
But it can’t, because the watcher doesn’t fight. It can only be understood. It just watches and leaves the poser to do what it wants. Vipassna says, whatever you watch, becomes conscious and doesn’t function at its potential. There is no need to fight it. Once the poser meets the watcher, it can’t perform as it used to. Then slowly but surely it becomes aware of the act. It becomes the watcher because it too is aware of the watching of the watcher at all times. But it is not the watcher. It is only playing the watcher. It is being a non-doer. And in it’s non-doing, it is experiencing the play called life. Then even death is a part of that play.
The show must go on, ‘it will’, ‘I’ say
Krishna, the greatest poser of all times; had such an insignificant death that hardly anyone knows about it. I do, but only because I’m a geek for spiritual studies. But it’s not important here. What is important only is why his death is so insignificant. Because death is insignificant in itself. Krishna is a symbol of life. And by his way, winning is insignificant too. Life is an experience not a competition. When Krishna says to Arjuna on the battlefield of Mahabharata, ‘you cannot kill anyone. It is your illusion. You cannot win, you cannot loose. You are just playing a part. So pick up your weapon and accept your destiny’; he is speaking the truth. Death is the biggest illusion. Death of the body is no death. It is the death of the soul, & the consciousness that kills us really.
This play, called life don’t end with death. We say, ‘let us bide our time’, till the next opportunity. But really that time is wasted. Nothing ends with death, nothing births with life. it is a continuum. It is already there. essentially, ’I’ must align vibrationally with ’it’ …
what you seek, is seeking you.
Rumi
We get a relief with death, on the contrary. A sort of sleep before the next day. Depending on how evolved a consciousness is, The soul is incarnated again within 13 days to 300 years later. Then we are playing a different character, in the same play. The achievements of the dead character won’t even matter but the soul touching experiences of the dead character will certainly play their part. Again & again. A different ‘I’ will experience the mysteries of life and look for logic in it. A different journey but the play is the same.
The poser never stops. It is like time. We move from mask to mask. The show continues. And the watcher watches life time after lifetime. The poser is temporary, the watcher is eternal.
We’re all posers, in the same play
Once the watcher is discovered, the poser can never be the same again. It has seen its temporary nature. It knows now that it is just a poser like everyone else. In this play called life, he is not in control, unlike the poser believed before meeting the watcher. But the ego doesn’t give up, my friend. Surrender happens despite the ego, and without denying it. Some choose to pose with a mask. Some prefer a thinner mask. But a poser must be masked. who is masked though? The watcher is masked. The closer the poser is to the watcher, the closer he is to his authenticity. A thin mask maybe, but a mask none the less.
the watcher needs a a mask. the watcher is the ’being’ not the doing. The watcher is feminine energy. It’s truest expression is meditation. she can be expressed through the soul but again the soul doesn’t really have a language. She cannot birth without the mask, The doer, the masculine. The Poser is ’He’, the Watcher is ’She’.
So in all honesty, a truly authentic person cannot be consistent really. The dualities of life will show through in his being. One day he will be ‘this’ & another day he will be ‘that’. And both will be true. Not subjectively. Together both will be the complete truth. When one is inconsistent, he is also considered unreliable. But he is reliable to the self. He is consistent to the self. Aligning his act, his actions, his pose; with the situation presented by life.
A truest authentic ‘individual’ cannot make a promise for the future. He knows the future doesn’t exist and that he is a poser as well as a watcher. An authentic individual will be truest to his truest watcher. He will adapt to the situation and will choose the mask the story demands, not the poser. Authenticity follows the writer. He knows the back story that ain’t in the story. He will truly be Krishna himself. Unpredictable, undeniable, unacceptable, unapologetic. Living just in the moment. Dying with every dying moment. In the language of the world, a recluse. Recluse or not, he is free.
We’re all posers in the same play, life time after lifetime. We have a great gift in life to ascend to the role of the watcher. The watcher is neither ‘I’ nor ‘you’. It is ‘it’. The main role. The main character. The only character. The greatest experience & the greatest achievement. And what holds us back? The million stories we tell ourselves of why we aren’t free to be free. When the poser becomes the watcher; the watcher becomes the watched. Then there is only one face. The real character. That is freedom, that is love; because from that point on, no excuse or conditioning seems to justify inauthenticity. Then we’ve broken through that which holds us back from our greatest story, our best act, the utmost experience, the highest achievement.
Bhagwan says, ‘acting is the most spiritual profession.’ There is great depth to this statement. The poser is spiritual, when the watcher watches the play. Then don’t matter what the plot is. whatever it is, it is being watched, it is being healed. healed from the ’Human Condition’.
If you’re a poser, Life’s a play, Must ‘watch’✨ Must enjoy all the way! The show must go on, ‘It Will’ ‘I’ say. We’re all posers In the same play! ~MaPJ~
To be Continued …
