“But whyyyyy?”
Anyone who has spent time around an inquisitive 3 or 4 year old will surely have had their fill of that simple question!
Invariably, I grasp around trying to remember a relevant fact from high school geography, and try to bring my explanation down to the level of a pre-schooler.
“The clouds are read because…. it is morning!”
The concept of the refraction of light as it passess through different densities is a few years away.
It won’t be the last time for the day that I cuff it…
We short-hand life constantly. Why?
God, the cause of being, Higher Power or whatever you wish to call it, is broadly accepted as ineffable – unable to be spoken of accurately.
Words are approximations. Guesses.
I respond to “David” when called, but so do millions of others. But in all truth, am ‘I’ actually David?
Perhaps I am ‘A’ David, but when I think about it, Da-vid is a sound that captures none of my lived experience; not the highs nor the lows of my life? So why do I respond.
If I am not David, who am I?
When I bring my awareness to the mundane, the simple things constantly before me like our reliance upon, and the inaccuracy of, all of our ‘names,’ I am broadsided by the peculiarity life.
When was the last time you questioned ‘who’ you were?
Did this come in a happy or sad period of your life? What answer did you rest upon?
No doubt there is a reality that we project – a world that is shaped by our words and thoughts – something we add as a layer on top of an indescribable experience of being.
The labels we give to life are not the ‘thing.’
Over time, the thoughts and ideas we hold about ourselves and of life become so familiar that we all but mistake them for reality.
Let’s say you’ve been hurt by someone of a particular gender—perhaps by a man.
Quite unconsciously, you may begin to project those past hurts onto other men in unconscious anticipation of future hurt. Suddenly you see the same fear, mistrust, or resentment that was a legitimate response to trauma, smeared onto just under half of the worlds inhabitants who have most likely, done nothing wrong to you.
Let us call this unhelpful labelling of the world outside of us, projection.
It’s protection. It’s survival. It’s the armour we forge around the heart so that it never bleeds again.
But the cost of this armour is that it hides us—from the world, yes—but more tragically, also from ourselves. It separates us from our own centre and in doing so, it drapes our perception in a fearful vibration that distorts what we see.
This is suffering…
So how do we know when we’re projecting?
If our inner commentary begins with “you”—as in you always, you never, you made me—we are likely… projecting.
If our thoughts obsess over another’s perceived shortcomings, or if we’re caught in repetitive loops of mental drama that revolve around others, chances are we have become like a mischievous monkey flinging it’s excrement.
Projection may help us survive… but is wearing body armour through life truly living?
A reminder here that Yoga isn’t about survival—it is about liberation… and liberation doesn’t come through projection.
It arises through it’s opposite, reflection.
The opposite of projection is looking within, also known as introspection, also known as owning your shit.
It is the choice to pause, turn inward, and contemplate: What’s really happening here, within me?
Let’s take a simple example.
You’re working in a team, and the circumstance requires you to be the leader. Someone casually accuses you of being power-hungry, of overstepping the mark: “You just want the limelight.”
Their words sting. They hit something. Their reaction, while poorly delivered, touches something true – maybe you do indeed like the power…
So what to do?
You could fixate on their accusation, save face in front of the group… profess your egalitarian nature. But it is a far more powerful choice to reflect.
What in me is touched by this comment? What hook is being tugged on here? Is this mine? Is there a past wound this is prodding?
When we feel irritated, judged, dismissed—or any strong emotional reaction—we are standing at the gateway of a veritable goldmine of wisdom.
Not because the other person is right. But because our discomfort reveals a hidden vulnerability, a place for us to explore so that we may heal.
When we choose to meet that vulnerability, rather than mask it with projection, we begin to unwind the whole pattern of suffering.
Now, let me be clear: reflection isn’t the same as inaction. Maybe they are off the mark and the right thing to do is cut down the comment in the moment, but it pays to be cautious.
Reflection is not passivity or repression.
It’s the courageous act of active witnessing—of choosing to be with what is arising within us without rushing to change the world outside of us (like getting into a verbal spat with someone on your team.)
This principle came home to me recently during an incident at our Ashram where during a group activity, a participant was triggered by something in my facilitation.
The Ashram is a mirror, and I am often tasked with helping people to focus on their own reflection. I made them aware that they were projecting their stuff upon another, in this case, me!
When I gently reminded them that they were in my Ashram (ie they were a student, here to learn, and that I was the teacher,) I was met with an accusation of being aggressive.
It is weakness that confuses assertiveness with aggressiveness; this is a hallmark of projection.
Suddenly ‘I’ was the problem, when indeed, the student had come to a place of learning and reflection… I can only presume to learn!
They were resisting their reflection and were trying to break the mirror.
Have I done this same thing myself? Most certainly. My stuff comes up all the time! I have had my share of unflattering reflections, and it takes humility to look within.
Had the individual in question turned their gaze within, there would have been the keys to unlocking where they were getting stuck in many areas of their life. But no-one can do the work, other than them.
Over the years, I’ve noticed a consistent pattern: when someone takes issue with another, it’s rarely ‘the other’ that is the problem.
More often, something we do happens to press on an old wound—perhaps a painful relationship with masculine authority, or an unhealed past experience.
99% of the time, other’s don’t cause pain, they simply reveal where it still lives.
When we hurt, there is an invitation to reflect, not react.
To heal, not harden.
So how do we begin?
The first step is meditation. Stillness. This turns up the resolution with which we witness the mind and our emotion.
When we witness our thoughts with clarity, we begin to catch ourselves in the act of blaming, in real time. And from there, we introduce a simple shift in perspective:
Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe I’m not seeing this clearly.
Start with admitting your ignorance, and eventually, you recognise that you are doing ‘a thing’ a little self protection routine that smears others.
And then, you ‘do the work’ by setting right your relationship to the one who first hurt you, not the other you have roped into a mimetic tango.
This takes humility. It takes honesty. And it requires us to drop the story of being a victim.
As long as we believe we are victims—of an abusive ex-partner, a cruel boss, or even a punishing God—we will remain bound to our suffering.
Yoga teaches the opposite.
Yoga says we are not victims. We are sovereign. We are creators. From the depths of consciousness, we have shaped this life to know ourselves, as what?
As the one, undying, imperishable, unyielding universal Soul.
When we live from this truth, we can face the storms of life with dignity. And like all things in Yoga, this knowing requires practice. Daily remembrance. Ritual. Repetition.
That’s why we sit each morning. Why we chant. Why we dance. Not for perfection. But for remembrance that what we are seeking by projection, will be found by reflection.
In remembrance, something beautiful happens; we begin to smile—not just at the absurdity of our emotional reactions, but at the child-like innocence behind them – a part of us simply didn’t want to be hurt again.
In time, we see the provocations of others not as personal attacks, but as divine play. And we become the kind of person who can turn the other cheek—not in weakness, but in full strength.
Calm.
Grounded.
Rooted in truth.
And then, when truth needs to be spoken, we speak it not from reactivity or to be heard, but only from Love.
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If you are courageous enough to look into the mirror, and wish to learn meditation, Hatha Yoga and the Traditional Yogic outlook on life (yoga beyond the stretching,) we have availability on our upcoming Soul Retreats in May and June and a bunch more retreats later in the year.
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We pray that this week you are able to pause in the midst of projection, and to reflect upon the higher truth of your Soul!
Jai Atmeshwar (Victory to the Divine Soul)
David
