And so on.
Sometimes the exercises were done with our eyes open. The exercises were always about the way we experienced ourselves and our lives, or as Jason put it, "Before you can flush out your head, you have to know what kind of shit is floating around in it first. "
Yuck.
But he got the point across.
One of the most frightening of all the exercises was the one about being naked. Jason divided us into groups. One at a time, each group had to stand up before the rest of the Tribe-naked. We were supposed to notice how uncomfortable we were being naked in front of other people.
The first time we did the exercise I thought I'd pass out. Later on, it got easier.
Jason said that clothes were the way we lied about our bodies; we presented ourselves to each other as a package of clothes and hair and makeup, instead of presenting ourselves as beings who lived in bodies. I didn't get the distinction, but I sure got the panic.
"The point is," Jason said, "most of you are afraid of other people's disapproval of your bodies." And after we worked our way through that, Jason told us, "And what's underneath that is your own disapproval of your body. You're angry because you have to live inside that body. You don't want to live inside that body; it's too old or too fat or too short or thin or too ugly or too light or too dark or too something. So you resist living inside your body; you won't let yourself experience your own body. That's why people do drugs and alcohol. That's why you turn into compulsive eaters and compulsive fuckers and compulsive anythings-because you're afraid to come out and simply be with the other members of your own species. You disapprove of your body, and you know that everybody else will too."
That was an angry evening. I didn't know exactly what had triggered it; apparently one of the little boys had been modest in front of one of the girls and Jason had seen. Modesty angered him.
For a couple of weeks after that, Jason had us all go naked. A lot of us got sunburned, but the point was made. After a while all tits and asses and cocks and pussies all looked the same. Different, but the same. Variations on a theme.
Never mind. You had to be there.
The third thing we did was Feedback.
Jason said, "Most of you are unconscious to the effect you have on the people around you. You have no idea what you are doing to everybody else. Or, let me put it another way: you are pissing on each other, you are shitting on each other, you are bludgeoning each other to death with your words! All the lies! All the bullshit! All the language games! All the rationalizations, excuses, justifications, explanations-all the things you do instead of simply telling the truth. The cost of it is your aliveness.
"That's why we do feedback. It's a chance for you to share what's going on inside your experience, and discover the effect you're having on the people around you. Look out at the group and see how they react-that's what you're putting out into the world."
There was so much. The funny part is that most of it was joyous. We almost always left the circle feeling fulfilled and inspired and enthused about the next day's work. Even when Jason yelled at us, it was only until we got the joke. There was always a joke. "Life is a joke we've played on ourselves," Jason would say. "What makes it so tragic is that most of us refuse to get the joke, so we go around letting life be a burden, a chore instead of an interesting challenge."
He didn't talk about the worms very much. That wasn't the point of the circle. The circle was for the people. The Revelations were for the worms.
There was a lot I didn't understand. I kept asking for explanations. People laughed when I did so. Jason said, "No, don't laugh. There's no such thing as a stupid question. The only stupid question is the one that isn't asked. And, Jim, what you need to know is that they're not laughing at you. They're laughing because they remember their own confusion. They're laughing because they're on the other side of the question now.
"What you need to know is that the explanation is irrelevant. True understanding only comes after you have experienced something. I could explain how to ride a bicycle all night, but that wouldn't teach you how to ride a bike. That wouldn't even give you the experience of it. But once you learn how to ride a bike, you don't need the explanation. Do you see that the explanations are irrelevant?"
"Uh . . ." I blushed. I was embarrassed. "Yes." I sat down. Everybody applauded. We applauded everything and everybody. We created our own excitement, Jason said. "Life is not what happens to us; it's what we create it to be. Here, we create our own enthusiasm."
I wished they wouldn't. It seemed so artificial. I didn't want to sit with it. So I stood up and announced, "I'm upset."
The circle cheered. "H'ray! Jim's upset." Jason said, "Thanks for acknowledging it."
I said, "What are you going to do about it?"
"Nothing. It's your upset. You handle it."
I said, "Don't you even want to know why?"
"No, not really. But you feel a need to share it, don't you?"
"Yes, I guess I do."
"So, go ahead. We have space for you to share your upset."
"I don't like all this cheering and yelling and hollering. It feels phony."
"I got it. Anything else?"
"No." I sat down. Everybody applauded. I felt foolish. But the upset was gone. Somebody leaned over and clapped me on the back. Other people smiled their love at me.
Jason said, "I want to talk about transformation tonight." Everybody cheered. This was a favorite subject.
He said, "Actually, I need to talk about experience first. Because I'm going to use the word experience a lot and we need to be clear what we're talking about. When I talk about your experience, I'm not talking about your history. I'm not talking about the rules and the beliefs and the stories you carry around. That's all bullshit. That's all over. That's the past. This is today. Now." He snapped his fingers to illustrate the point. "Now, now, now, now, now-and so on. Now is always now. That's where you live." He paused and grinned at us. "Now, now, now, now." Almost instantly, the whole circle was chanting with him, "Now, now, now, now-" until he raised his hands and cut us off laughing. "Right. You got it. That moment of now-that's who you really are. You are the place where the experience of now occurs. You are not the ideas or the judgments that you create. And you are not even the raw experiences. You are the place where it happens, nothing more. You are not your body. You are not your name. Get it! You are not a thing. You are not your attitudes, you are not your judgments, you are not your beliefs. Those are just concepts that you create and that you hold and have. But you are not your concepts. You are simply and only the place in which all of this occurs. You are the place where you create your life.
"We're going to do an exercise now, to give you the opportunity to experience your ability to create yourself as a being. This is a game where everybody wins. There's no way to do it wrong. So don't worry if you're doing it right. You are. The purpose is to experience yourself playing. It is in your play that you create yourself. So let yourself experience whatever comes up for you. It's all right. Everybody stand up. Now, first, we've got to shake you out of your heads. You're all with your thoughts, so we're going to shake you into consciousness. So everybody find a partner. . . ." He waited till we had done so. My partner was Frankenstein. "Now, grab each other's hands-and start jumping. Up and down, up and down, around and around . . .
It was a shock to see Frankenstein's monster smiling and grinning and laughing and jumping up and down. I had to work to keep up with him-I was afraid he was going to rip my arms out of my sockets if I didn't.