How Selfish Can You Be!

 

Taking off from my embroidered work on the word ‘Liar’ – the mental stain that emerges on being called a Liar, or is left in the mind when judging someone a Liar - 

Liar,Liar,Liar..... http://gopikanathstitchjournal.blogspot.in/2014/04/liar-liar-liar.html  I have moved onto working with ‘SELFISH’.

I first wrote the letters on paper in a cursive hand, going over and over them, creating a kind of stain. I then drew this mark on a piece of cross-stitch matte.  For some reason, this time I have worked only with cross-stitch.  And, so far, without the muslin which I had earlier torn, burned or shred to express the way I felt.

The writing and over-writing on the word, created a kind of blob.

This then led me to draw the letters which extend above the base line - as loops – such as  the loop of the ‘S’, the ‘l’ and the ‘h’,  in a cursive hand. While outlining this, I started seeing, in my mind’s eye, capital letters rising from behind the cursive hand.  I found that I could only fit in S E L F. Now this gave me food for thought – and I started thinking on the lines of ‘SELF’ as emerging from being selfish.

Cross stitch is a laborious process and very meditative in itself. But, at this point I was rather restive and didn’t quite relish the intense routine of the stitch, which created more contemplation on the inner being than expression of the fraught mind. But, gradually as I worked, I calmed down. Naturally ha! 

 

Many years ago an astrologer advised me that I learn to be more selfish. I found it totally weird but over the years, have often pondered on the idea of being selfish. Conventionally, selfish is not considered a desirable trait, so why was this guy telling me to learn how to be more selfish and basically what did it entail?

I found it very curious the way ‘SELFISH’ was evolving through my embroidery and the meaning that was emerging from this creative representation of the word. It lent an entirely different perspective to:  How selfish can you be!!  - A term, mostly used with derision.

 

 I recollect one of my boarding school reports, where the nuns had noted that I was self-centred and how my mother had chided me for this. Possibly, in her scheme of things, being self-centred meant that I did what I felt in my heart. And this I know, didn’t always meet with her approval.

I was not an overtly rebellious child but driven by ‘feeling’ more than thinking things through, until such a point I felt this had alienated my mother’s love.  She couldn’t understand or discipline me in the way she did my other siblings. Later, ‘doing’ things in a way that catered to a perceived need, to gain her approval, met with disastrous consequences - alienating me from myself.

In this condition, to consider being selfish and doing things that suited me, without caring for the approval of others, perplexed me no end. But through a great deal of self-examining which started about two decades ago, I began to see that there were two kinds of selfishness.

One was being self-centred - rooted in one’s being, listening to the inner guidance. Doing what was needed to do to fulfil one’s life’s purpose – identify it and live. Not through someone else’s dictates or what was perceived as their need - often manipulated by guilt, but through that inner vision that comes forth when one is silent enough to look within and feel. This doesn’t mean a disregard for others in your life and insensitivity towards their feelings or disrespect for them. It just means a healthy respect for you. This state of being will always accommodate those who matter. It means finding that ideal balance between their needs and your own- straddling the most complex of all the paradoxes of life.

The other kind of selfish, is where we are driven by the ego, that i-ness where indignation of the mind comes into play and everything is driven by the way we think that things must be. This other kind of selfishness is what we are usually derisive of. Here people become self-absorbed in a dense and secretive way. They can be insensitive and act almost unconscious of their heart-speak. By extension, they have little respect for others, often without even realising it.

In this state of being, one is running away from that mirror of self, chasing things or ideas regardless of whom or what comes under the callous wheels of this carriage – just to get as far away as possible from that sense of wretchedness that comes from being unable to resolve the inner conflict of mind and spirit or subconscious mind and conscious mind or any other conflict that may be taking place within the human being.

So, when I started looking at the discomfort that I felt in being called selfish and then contrarily also being advised to be more selfish – learn to be so, I felt considerable conflict in my being. At one level it was about being rooted – silent and peaceful with one’s being, working from that heart centre that would guide in mysterious ways towards whatever was right for me. Or, there was the selfishness a lot of us have encountered - where people have no time to listen, focussing upon their own pain, recounting woes and living in a constant state of victimization. I thought I was participating in the former, but was accused of the latter and I couldn’t ever feel at peace because how did one really resolve this issue?         

Through my contemplation on the word, as I embroidered, I was beginning to see that being selfish – no matter which way you look at it, actually roots you in yourself. This, I realised couldn’t be presented through the shredded or pulled fabric – which evokes a fragmented state of being, so I decided to go with the intuitive nudge and work with just the cross-stitch.

I started realising that the word itself is not the problem, it is the association attached to it which creates one. When someone says you are selfish or self-centred, the connotation is a negative one. It deems that you are unwilling to help others when they need. But, truth is that giving to the extent that others often seem to need, especially when they are not rooted in themselves, and therefore in their actual need, can be tough, because it will never be enough.

 Continuing my work on the blob or stain –I outlined the cursive-hand marks in a neutral colour, but, one that had tinges of the colour of a ‘tea stain’ - reflective of a mark or stain in the mind. Then I outlined S E L F [there was no space to include ISH] with a soft pink – the colour of rose quartz, also in some schools of thought, representative of the colour of the heart chakra.  This I suppose could indicate love - in embracing the self. All of this was emerging through that intuitive feeling. I was after all in unchartered territory so that was the only direction I could rely upon.

And then I thought I would have the rising letters of S E L F embroidered in this soft pink hue, but as it rose higher, it would merge with the colour of the fabric.  It would go from soft pink into a kind of off-white – suggesting the emotional and spiritual process of how we rise into the higher self, through selfish beings rooted in the ego self and all that came with it – the stains, the shame, the pain et al.

Gradually as the stains of experience are cleansed through knowing and understanding, the pure self - that spirit of divinity within, emerges and merges with the ether or nothingness - as it is also called. Therefore the colour surrounding the ‘word-stain’ is off-white, reflective of this nothingness.

I don’t know what this piece will end up looking like, and how I will bring in the muslin that I have used with the others, which I probably will because it looks kind of naked without it and very stark too.  But, in this language of fabric, thread, colour and stitch, I was able to find an objective distance.

 I realised that the path of self realisation is through the darkness – the ignorance, the emotion and judgements of the world. And gradually, as one does deal with these experiences and our emotions and attachments thereof, going deeper into the stains, some kind of neutrality emerges – without that harsh, critical and defensive judgement of self and others.

            

Examining the ‘blob’ or ‘word-stain’ through the embroidery process, has enabled me to redefine the meaning of the word, where being selfish - either with or without the ego is really all about a process, and that it cannot be forced upon one. We all begin our journey without knowing much and it is experience and sometimes our own hostile survival instincts that eventually teach us different ways of living.

As the capital S E L F stands erect, high above the muddy, stain-coloured letters below, they stand straight, as if exuding dignity, holding their heads high almost as though the issue is resolved. They seem to say that there is now, no need for shame. It is all part of life, where being selfish will eventually lead you to being self-centred – tuned into your inner being where only SELF matters......or nothing does.