Have you cleaned your window?

Have you cleaned your window?

Dear friends,

I was recently reminded of a great story I wanted to share:

A woman was in her living room with her husband. She looked out her window and saw that her neighbor had recently hung out laundry to dry in the sun. The woman said to her husband, “Just look at those clothes! They are filthy. I need to talk to her and tell her how to wash clothes properly. I can't believe at her age she still doesn't know how to do such a basic task.”

The next morning as she looked out the same window she said to her husband, “You must have spoken to her! Her clothes are now spotless. When did you talk to her?” He replied without even looking up from his morning newspaper, “I actually got up early and cleaned our windows.”

We live in such an us-centric universe in our own minds that we assume our perceptions are rock solid, so whatever we are seeing that is “off” must itself be out of whack. If you knew that someone had slipped a drug into your drink, you’d be less confident in your own perceptions as being true to reality. Well, the truth is — we all have been slipped a drug. The Yogis call it maya: delusion. Our desires and fears color our perceptions in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Thus, we readily assume it’s the neighbor’s inadequacy and not the window.

One of my favorite verses from the music I listen to is:

For I find that this whole world around me,
Like a mirror upon the wall,
Smiles back when I smile,
looks blue when I’m blue,
And that blue shade I don’t like at all!

There is a real external world, but we do not perceive it except through the filter of our own perceptions, judgments, and personal perspective. Let us promise ourselves to spend more time cleaning our own windows!

Blessings,
David G, manager
For the gang at East West