The Theatre of Life

I have inherited a beautiful movie theatre. I enter the theatre and it is dark and dormant. I turn on the lights and am overcome with the beauty and detail of the architecture. So much effort and craftsmanship were used in its creation. It has been waiting for me to arrive.

I walk into the main room and see a large screen in front of me. I take a seat in the center of the room, surrounded by empty seats. I turn the projector on and I see the beauty and wonder that is our physical world.

I marvel at what I experience: sight, touch, taste, smell, sound. All of it comes through the screen in such beautiful clarity. I spend years just marveling at the world. So much detail. So much beauty. So much to experience.

I discover that the projector not only shows me what is out in the physical world but it can also show me a fantasy world. Worlds of my own creation with the same depth of detail as what I witness in the physical world.

I get excited by the prospect of creating all these worlds. Projecting scenario after scenario on the screen for me to experience. I see myself as the hero of so many stories that I create. Living in worlds filled so much wonder and amazement. The physical world now competes with the fantasy worlds. And there are many times where I merge those worlds together and enjoy living my fantasies in the physical world.

Overtime I become hypnotized by what is playing in front of me. I have become so engrossed in the images and sensations that I forget who I am. I forget that I inherited the theatre. I forget that I have control over the projector. I even forget that I am sitting in the theatre at all. My entire being is invested in what is on the screen.

I hunger for more and more experiences to explore. This hunger causes me to become dependent on the projector to keep feeding me experience after experience. Over time the projector itself comes to life from the energy that I have fed it. A sentient being with its own wants and desires. And just like every living creature, it possesses a primal desire to survive. Its desire for survival is so strong that it manipulates me through the images on the screen.

I go from being the owner of the theatre to an audience member, feeding the projector day after day with my energy.

The projector notices when I look away from the screen. It notices when I become aware that I am in a theatre. Even for a moment. It is threatened by that awareness and does everything in its power to keep my focus. It starts putting things on the screen that are intense and painful to hold my attention. Things filled with sorrow, rage, disgust and especially fear. The once beautiful images I have created transform into a horror movie.

My once ally turned into my enemy. And the projector is happy to be my enemy. The projector knows that as long as I keep feeding it my energy that it will continue to live and grow, even if that energy is combative. All the while, I have forgotten that I use to be able to control the projector. Now the projector controls me.

I try to fight what is on the screen. The images are so painful that I overlay positive images onto the negative ones to distract myself. I fight as hard as I can to not see the disturbing images. Like two radio stations fighting over the same frequency. And for some time, this works. These distractions are strong enough to keep the disturbing images away from my awareness.

What I don’t realize is that when I do this, I give those very images my power. My resistance feeds them the same way I feed the projector. And now these images have a life of their own. They begin to walk out of the screen and enter the theatre. Ghosts born of negative experiences from reality and the fantasy worlds. Each one taking a seat in one of the empty chairs surrounding me. Hidden in the darkness of the theatre.

At first their presence is not noticed. The theatre is quite large and there are plenty of seats. But over time, more and more of these specters emerge from the screen and sit around me.

I experience the disturbances that they cause: a baby crying, a couple arguing, a judging voice critiquing the images on the screen, the smell of pungent food, someone kicking the seat behind me, the taste of stale popcorn in the air.

Overtime the theatre gets crowded and overwhelming. There are so many specters around me that I have a hard time focusing on the screen. The projector notices the pull of attention that specters create and incorporates the disturbances into the images on the screen. More of my energy is being siphoned away from me. The screen is filled with corrupted images. The coloring is all off. The sounds are intrusive and screeching. The bass fills the theatre with such depths of percussion that it feels like I am in an earthquake.

I live this way for many years. I have forgotten that I own the theatre. That without me, it would be empty and dormant.

I have lost control. No. I have given control away to all the “life” I have created. The projector lives because it feeds off my life. The specters lives because they feed off my life.

It is time for me to reclaim this space as its rightful owner. I start to notice what I am being presented. Noticing how I experience the different sensations that come through the screen. Noticing what is out in the physical world and seeing how they are different from the fantasies that the projector creates. The projector wants me to judge, label and emote but I simply notice. I simply observe. And over time I start noticing the edges of the screen.

I begin to remember that I am sitting in a theatre. Just moments at first. Those moments grow over time. The projector tries to keep my attention by showing me more painful images but I simply observe. I don’t feed the narratives I witness. I just notice that they are there.

Little by little, I reclaim my life from the projector. If I only observe the screen, it can’t feed off of my energy. If I don’t get sucked into the stories that it creates, it can’t feed off of me. And the less the projector is fed, the weaker it becomes.

Then a miraculous thing occurs. I turn the projector off. Just for a few moments, but it is off. And in those moments, I feel a sense of peace that I have forgotten.

And in that moment of quietness, I sense the specters around me. Some of them have been living in the theatre for so long that they have become fused with the structure of the building. But their presence is not natural. They are stuck in whatever seat they have selected. And whenever something on the screen upsets them, they act up and cause havoc.

They want to leave my theatre. I can help them. I just need to show them the way out. During these moments of peace, I focus my awareness at one of these specters. I illuminate them like a spotlight.

I don’t feed them like I had in the past. I simply witness their existence. That illumination is powerful. The light of witnessing dissolves their entanglement with the theatre. And I use the light to guide them back to the screen where they dissolve away like a morning mist to the sun. The specters were never meant to exist beyond the moment they appeared on the screen. And now my energy that they held is returned. Their disturbances in the theatre end.

I continue this process. More and more specters depart. All the while the sense of peace I feel gets deeper and deeper. I reconnect with the stillness. The stillness of myself. The stillness that is natural to my being.

Disturbing images still appear on the screen from the physical world but I do not feed them my energy. I just witness their presence. I no longer fill the screen with disturbing fantasies. And when one appears, I just observe it fade away.

I continue my life in this way. No judgement. No expectations. Simply witnessing my experiences. Knowing that one day I will leave this theatre and never return. Knowing that I have grown. Grateful for everything that I have witnessed. Grateful for the specters that I have created and released. Grateful for the projector and all the experiences it has shown me. Grateful for the theatre itself and its natural beauty. Simply grateful.