ato na viShayo hetur
bandhaaya na vimuktaye
parikalpa-visheSheNa
saNgo bhavati vaa na vaa
- = - - - = = =
= = - - - = - =
- - = - - = = -
= = - - - = - =
13.53
Thus, an object is not the cause
Of bondage or of liberation;
It is through a particular kind of fixing
That sticking occurs or does not.
COMMENT:
Exactly what kind of fixing is it that causes a person to become emotionally stuck? What causes life to be experienced as one emotional snag, or sticking point, after another?
I think it has to do with trying to be right, on the basis of feeling that is wrong, due in particular to unduly excitable fear reflexes.
If I am allowed to use technical jargon, I think it has to do with end-gaining, on the basis of faulty sensory appreciation centred on a dysfunctional vestibular sense, associated with aberrant vestibular reflexes.
Speaking of the vestibular system (which Marjory Barlow admittedly never does, not directly), in the passage from Marjory's book quoted in the comment to 13.51, I missed a few sentences out which relate to the vestibulo-ocular reflex, and I would like to quote them now. So here is the passage again, quoted verbatim from pp. 156 :
Q: How do you address the use of the eyes?
MB: I say, I want you to look at something, but see it. That's the great secret. Because you can be looking at that picture and not seeing it at all. Ask them, "What were you looking at?" It isn't a question of staring, it's a question of consciously directing the eyes, so that they are seeing. Some teachers don't use their eyes at all. It's terrible. FM used to say that a lot -- "Look at what you're doing, you've got to use all your senses," he used to say. They eyes are so important, because they are awfully mixed up with the head direction, and if you've got someone with a stiff neck and you can't undo it, get them to look at something and turn the head and you'll find the neck comes undone immediately -- but immediately! It's all part of the fixing. That's our biggest evil, fixing. FM used to say that. "You all fix." See, it's the desire to hold onto something. You've got to let it go and be in danger. You know how I put my hand down the spine and free that little bit through there just below the 'hump', and with some people if you do that too soon they look absolutely panic stricken. Their whole security is bound up just in that little bit below the hump and if you begin to free that, goodness, it's as if your taking away their whole security. That's one thing FM used to say, "What we're doing here is interfering with a person's sense of security -- what we're giving them is something much more secure, but they can't feel it so they don't know it yet. They will in time."
Marjory does not mention "the vestibulo-ocular motor reflex arc" in this passage any more than Ashvaghosha does in this verse. Marjory detested scientific-sounding jargon. She didn't like the habit among Alexander teachers, for example, of describing lying down work as "lying semi-supine." So she didn't talk, as I am always talking, about "the vestibular system." But in the above passage on the subject of fixing, when she talks about looking at something and turning the head, Marjory is just talking about the vestibular-ocular motor reflex arc.
One of the good things about being back in Aylesbury is that there are many good teachers here waiting to deepen my understanding of how aberrant vestibular reflexes influence human behaviour -- or at least waiting to falsify my former views on human growth and development. Among those good teachers, the best tend to be aged around 8 or 9 years old.
None of these teachers is perfect. Their mums bring them to see us knowing that something is wrong, something is stuck. So none of them is perfect. But some of them are happier than others. And the ones that are happier, it seems to me, are free of -- how can I put it without using technical sounding jargon? -- a particular kind of fixing.
EH Johnston:
Hence an object of the senses is not of itself a determining cause either of bondage or of emancipation. Association with a special imagination may make it such or it may not.
Linda Covill:
It follows that sense objects are not the cause of bondage or liberation; whether attachment arises or not is due to specific imaginings.
VOCABULARY:
ataH: hence, from this
na: not
viShayaH (nom.): an object
hetuH (nom.): cause
bandhaaya (dative): for bondage
na: not
vimuktaye (dative): for liberation
parikalpa: fixing
visheSheNa = instr. sg. of visheSha: characteristic difference , peculiar mark , special property , speciality , peculiarity ; a kind , species , individual (e.g. vRkSha-visheSha , a species of tree , in comp. often also = special , peculiar , particular , different , e.g. chando-visheSha , " a particular metre ")
saNgaH (nom): m. sticking , clinging to , touch , contact with ; addiction or devotion to , propensity for , (esp.) worldly or selfish attachment or affection , desire , wish , cupidity; relation to , association or intercourse with (gen. instr. with and without saha loc. , or comp.)
bhavati: it becomes, is
vaa na vaa: or not
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