THE MATRIX

The Matrix is the well-known sci-fi film about a computer hacker who, over time and with the help of others, discovers that the world he believes he is living in is an illusion. He is a character in somebody else’s reality, much like we are all characters in a larger, Divine or Universal plan, which we cannot possibly grasp in its entirety.

The Matrix is many things, including a metaphysical exploration: A commentary on the nature of consciousness.

To one degree or another we all live within our own matrix; and it takes an-Other perspective to help us step outside of this and to see our matrices for what they are. The point being that we cannot see our own blind spots. We can think of the matrix as the framework with which we approach the world; the perspective through which we view ourselves, others, and situations more generally.

An example: A guy believes that he has to be strong, and in control, and right all of the time. At about midlife, he begins to glimpse how this gets in his way: His wife complains that he does not embrace his vulnerability, for example, and this leaves her feeling lonely. So he vows to learn to become more comfortable in his vulnerability and goes to therapy. Once there, he “does vulnerability” in a very in-control way. He plans exactly what he will say to the therapist before each visit, wanting to talk about something that connects him to his feeling-life. He is really trying. And to a certain degree, things are different.

In another way, they are the same. His matrix (approaching the world in an in-control, strong, right kind of way) is still in place. And because it is being threatened by his attempts to be more vulnerable, it may be even stronger. Our matrices don’t like the process of dissolution very much.

The problem is this: His matrix (our matrices) is SO compelling. Here he is, in therapy, talking about feelings! He sees that he is doing something differently; his wife sees it; his therapist sees it. What no one sees, yet, is the blind spot: The way he is doing vulnerability “strongly” and in-control.

Here is another example: This time, a guy who lives in the world in a very safe, secure, and therefore sort-of rigid way. His penchant for ritual and routine seem to hold him in or hold him back in some way. He is starting to notice an absence of passion in his life and so seeks to loosen-up the rigidity. He decides to take up yoga. Before long, he is going six days a week, at the same time every day, and wishes his mat to be in the same location at each class. He is literally loosening-up, but the matrix is still in place.

Can you see it?

Maybe the structured way of approaching yoga keeps other people out. Maybe it keeps him in. Maybe it prevents him from looking inside to ask “Do I want to do yoga today?” and therefore from coming into contact with the spontaneity that is feared as too wild, uncontrolled, dangerous. But his yoga practice is SO compelling. “Look, I’m participating in the alternative and spiritual world where people trust their instincts!”
… But is he?

I am giving examples that are both exaggerated and simplified; and perhaps I am being too hard. Both of these men are trying to do something differently and to enrich their lives accordingly. And this is part of the process—a significant part. In my experience, as we make this kind of progress and travel through the process, we bang up against the walls of our matrices again and again, and again. The bumping is what teaches us they are there. Others, by virtue of offering a different perspective, framework, or way of looking at things, teach us about the existence of our matrices as well. Glimpsing the Divine, the invisible, the formless world also teaches us that there is so much more than the form or framework to which we are so attached.

And slowly, and often just a little bit at a time, we begin to emerge. The emergence doesn’t mean we cannot ever enter back into our original matrix. It’s just that when we do, we do so with more awareness that it is one of multiple frameworks. Not the only one. And we begin to understand that those painful moments of glimpsing our own insanity—the way we do the same thing over and over again hoping for a different result—are gifts that point the way toward an ever expanding consciousness; and more fulfilling relationships. Toward a way of being in the world that gives us choices, each and every moment; including the choice to be more fully our selves.

The discomfort of bumping into the familiar walls of the matrix leads outside of these same walls. And into freedom.