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Are You a Result of Your Own Projection?
Vedic rishis said that projection is the mechanism by which consciousness created reality. We are all familiar with this because the movie business depends entirely on projection. A star is an actor who has crossed the dividing line between reality and projection.
Our entire culture has been built upon projection, and at this moment you and I are continuing the process. Projection creates meaning. By themselves, events are meaningless until we give them value.
While we are creating in the material world, we are affecting every level of consciousness and therefore every level of creation. Meaning is never isolated. For instance, angels exist because they have been projected in consciousness.
Projection can get complicated. A society that feels endangered can project wild fantasies. Muslim fundamentalists project a West that is corrupt, unholy, and decadent, while Christian fundamentalists project an Islam that is barbaric, fanatical, and godless in return.
Projection is “successful” when we no longer can see reality but have created a false version based on fear, hostility, anxiety, or insecurity–any negative emotion for which we refuse to take responsibility. Projection can also be positive, as it is when a smitten lover sees perfection in the object of his love, although to friends and family the beloved remains an ordinary creature of flesh and blood.
Adapted from Life After Death: The Burden of Proof, by Deepak Chopra (Harmony Books, 2006).
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add your comment »John C, your commentation has been a gift for me. Thank you- I at this time can not add any more & do not wish to take away...so with this- a simple but sincere~ Thank you may suffice.
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What you write is beautiful Bob. Really beautiful. Thank you.
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Mary,
Thanks for your comment. What a great discussion.
Whether we are projecting the expectation of a long winter or the simple beauty of some red hawthorn berries, are we not still projecting? The beauty of those berries is essentially nonexistent to those who do not project their own soul's beauty upon them. The beauty is every bit as much yours as it is the hawthorn's.
We would do well in most cases to go for the simpler and more direct kind of projection, just as you did with those berries. The simpler one is usually the more honest one.
We (self included) often tend to over-complicate life. Taking a child's tears at face-value as an expression of her pain works well enough whether the child's pain comes from a stubbed toe or from a feeling that she is not getting enough of our attention. We may suspect that the child is producing her tears for effect, manipulating us, trying to elicit our sympathy; and this complication can distort our response to her.
May not a 'manipulative' child's tears reflect a psychic hurt even deeper than those caused by a stubbed toe?
Better to embrace the child no matter what motivates her to cry.
Better to see her beauty and to love her.
Better not to judge.
Better to love.
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Why are we so compelled to project at all. Trying to give life meaning and projecting all sorts of ideas dead and gone into the present experience. d. Its madness really.
While looking at a hawthorn bush today which was laden down with red berries..I felt my self saying oh yes that is a sign of a long winter...and then I though what a load of rubbish...the berries are a beautiful sight on this dull and dreary day and gave it just the right color it needed to enhance the moment.
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What an interesting concept to mull over in meditation! As always, you have given me a lot to contemplate.
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beautiful prayers/great reminder!
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Beautiful prayer. I love it. Thank you.
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I'm only presenting my own limited understanding, of course.
I feel that there has always been a deep link between the spiritual seekers, explorers, and gurus of West and East that can be seen once we get past superficial cultural differences.
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Deepak This is soooo intense.. I will be thinking about this a lot Thank You .
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The entire physical universe is a projection of consciousness, and then we each project individually onto that canvas which is generated by the overall consciousness that underlies everything. So yes, it can get complicated.
Projecting love and compassion paints a more congruent picture than painting desire, greed, or resentment.
I am reminded of the Prayer of St. Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Francis of Assisi is seeking to align himself with the Creative Spirit that underlies and generates the entire physical universe. He is seeking to become less a projector of his own ego and more a clear conduit of Divine Light.
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