𝐆𝐫𝐚𝐯𝐢𝐭𝐲 𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐡𝐞 "𝐑𝐞𝐝 𝐏𝐢𝐥𝐥"

 

Gravity is the "Red Pill"

"Red Pill" is a big thing in the movie The Matrix. It's small, it's a pill, so it's small; but you get what I'm saying. "Big" in significance. It's a symbol for awakening from conditioning; the conditioning of society, the constructed illusory Matrix. It's integral to the story; so, if you haven't best for you to go right now and watch the show so you have the full skinny on the reference.

First, to be clear, society needs its conditioning. We all drive on the same side of the road. Well, except for those contrary Brits and all the lands they held in their imperial sway. Or, you turn the water faucet clockwise to shut it off. Or, you light the Tobacco end of a filtered cigarette. Or, the up elevator goes ... up. Except that one at the Chelsea Hotel in New York City when I lived there; a mind of its own it had. 

But then there's the conditioning of ideas. Ways of thinking. The way I think it is, is the way it is; and the way it should be. Isn't that pretty much at the root of all the shit we see in the news these days? A contest over whose view is to prevail. When, in fact, having a view itself might just the problem. We, however, contest of this view or that. The recent Presidential election exemplifies that point. One candidate is gonna take us all to hell. And, so will the other. Depending on which side you take, the stakes have been framed as so dire it's a wonder that more idiots haven't decided to take matters in their own hands. 

In any case, there also is a thing in ordinary life about waking up. Better, waking up from. Plenty of wisdom knowledge on that subject. It's above my pay grade to attempt to give chapter and verse. Go look for yourself, if you're so inclined. If not, never mind; don't give it a second thought. Come to think of it, that's the formula for awakening, don't give a second thought! As my go-to Nisargadatta Maharaj put it: "... the rigorous refusal to harbor thoughts." 

That is awakening. You stop carrying around ideas about what it is, how it should be, and how you think and feel about the difference. Take a fresh, unfiltered look. Because, in the world, there'll always be differences. Heck, if not, why would anyone want to wake up from a cozy dream? 

The "Matrix" is living with a set of prescriptions about what's what. Handed to us by family, teachers, society, priests, and politicians. A dream. Nothing necessarily wrong with any of that. Just, to not be aware that "all the world's a stage" is to keep running in the same set habitual circles, ignorant of the underlying realities. But, once awake, you then open yourself to creative options. Heck, look at the friggin' news, Boy! Oh, Boy! We are most probably at a fin-de-siècle of biblical proportions, and the sleepers at the wheel of the ships of state are still pretending to know what they're doing. Die-hards; let's pray not. Time to pray. To repent. To fess up to our stupidity. Cultivate the virtues. Humility before the Creator. The self-made approach to life is showing us its end game. But, what pol got elected confessing they don't know? Socrates was just some guy way back when. Now, everyone knows; and the contest goes to the one who convinces us they know best. What could go wrong with that?

Waking up is not, by the way, the same as woke. "Woke" in my book is just being hip to whatever the popular zeitgeist is pushing at the moment. "Awake" is having the scales fall from your eyes, cleansing the doors of perception.

So, how does Gravity play into this waking up stuff?

We're not talking about Gravity as a concept. That is, in intellectual terms. Formulas and theories. That stuff is good for moving things like rockets, or building walls. Fine enough. 

There's Gravity as percept. But even not like when you drop your ice cream off the cone, and it falls to the ground. We all know from Gravity like that. Or, from when as kids we played at stacking blocks. Or, how you see a picture is off kilter on the wall.  That sort of thing is more direct, ingrained: but still mainly intellectual. It is closer to activities like skiing and skateboarding and surfing. That sense of reciprocal kinesthetic balance you have to have to keep moving with the flow.

But, there's more. Way more. As the above illustrates, the sense for keeping one's balance is a learned skill. We all have it, in varying degrees. The difference between the two young fellas above is in the balance of the body itself. Repeat ... the balance of the body itself. The one with obvious imbalances in the makeup of his body may in fact be the better skateboarder. We're not talking about the ability to balance. Get that straight. The boy on the right brings a balanced body to the party. That's a crucial difference. It's about the experience of living, of being alive. Do you really want to live!? Yes? Balance your body!

Gravity to the rescue.

And, that is how Gravity frees from past conditioning. We all arrive at adulthood with a random mix of imbalances fixed into the fabric of our flesh. We are shaped by our experience(s). Unresolved accidents and traumas get folded in. Habits, both good and bad, get repeated and shape the way we do things; the way we see things. Insufficient learning, and improper learning. "Shoulders back, head up, knees locked, hips clenched" ... sound familiar? Soldiers have been famously known to faint under holding that standard of uprightness too long. That can't be good. And, very influential, modeling significant others who may have themselves not been healthy examples of simple bodily balance. 

Dr. Ida P. Rolf, the originator of the definitive and peerless approach to Human balance in respect to the demands of Gravity stated it thusly: “When the body gets working appropriately, the force of Gravity can flow through. Then, spontaneously, the body heals itself.”

Of course, now the conversation opens to another question: what is healing? Obviously it's about fixing what isn't right. Flipped over more positively, it's about cultivating what is right. In personal bodily terms this has to do with how imbalances in the arrangement of the body limit range and choice. Contribute to chronic problems associated with pain and stress; if not being the actual cause.

So, you may [should] be asking, "What is right?". Right in bodily terms is the same as for any structural arrangement on Earth. Stacked up nicely vertical, symmetrical side to side, and level front to back. This is not a static situation like a brick wall. It's dynamic. But, at the core that "Plumb & Square" reference needs to be there. 

Healing in its broadest sense also has to do with soulful with reality. There's a range. Wholeness. Oneness. Healing separation(s). Dislocated joints on the ordinary level. The expulsion from the Garden, that's a soul level matter.  

As pointed out, there's the immediate physical reality of how things under the influence of Gravity need to be arranged vertically upright, with symmetries and levels. This is architecture 101 from the time when someone figured out that mud fence would hold up if it was straight. Same with the human body. The basic science of Anatomy and Physics. I know. It makes sense. Just now to put it into practice.

There's the alignment with the Creation itself. For that, sitting in easy alignment with Gravity, energies move and things sort themselves, by themselves. That's Gravity at work! Not much to say. See for yourself!