The Infinite Regress of Our Woundedness

    It’s 2:30am here in Kerela, my fifth night on pilgrimage in India and still I am not adjusted to the time change.  There’s a 10 and a half hour difference between here and home.  So, I am enjoying being wide awake in the middle of these glorious Kerela nights.  And what a productive time this has proved to be!  I’ve completed four blog posts so far in these wee hours of the morning.  Though best not to try this at home for the gift will surely wane as I become accustomed to Kerela time.  But before that happens I will leverage my sleeplessness, hoping to create an audio blog.  
    Our theme during these ten days in Kerela with Russill Paul is healing.  We are discussing the importance of healing the egoic structure while we walk the spiritual path.  This is an important topic because it is our woundedness around which the ego constricts and that constriction is part of what prevents the surrender necessary in one’s practice.
    Anyone who honestly reflects on their life surely can identify the numerous wounds with which they are afflicted.  There are wounds we suffered in childhood at the hands of others who expressed their own woundedness on our childhood innocence.  There are wounds we suffered in childhood as we ourselves thoughtlessly hurt others, only to feel the remorse of our transgressions after the fact.  And of course there are wounds we have suffered in adulthood, again, because of what others have done to us or what we have done to others.  (You’ll notice here that even when it is we who are the culprit we still suffer wounds ourselves.  Self-recrimination sets in and we carry that with us throughout our lives.  No transgressor gets off conscience free!)
    In all this conversation about woundedness a question is begged, namely, “Who, ultimately, is to blame for my woundedness?”   While we can clearly point to culprits, even ourselves at times, the fact of the matter is that no one is to blame for our woundedness.  “But wait!” you might be protesting.  That scoundrel clearly wounded me!  Well, on one level that is true.  On another level that scoundrel can point to yet another scoundrel who caused their woundedness and had it not been for that experience, they would not have wounded you.  When their transgression toward you occurred they were coming from a place of woundedness themselves.  Given this, are they then to blame?  No more than you are when you wound others when you act from woundedness.  In otherwords, transgressions that cause woundedness are born out of transgressions that caused woundedness which are also born out of transgressions that caused woundedness.  It’s an infinite regress of woundedness and unless you buy into the Christian explanation that it all began with Adam, the only person who cannot point to his own woundeness as a justification for his actions, no one is to blame.  This reminds me of a story I once heard in a Philosophy class as an Undergraduate at The University of Michigan.

    A school teacher was lecturing on the nature of the universe and had just finished explaining the mechanisms of our own solar system.  When she asked whether the class had any questions a young girl raised her hand and asked a question most everyone wonders upon seeing a visual representation of the solar system for the first time: “How does the earth manages to stay in its place?!”  Another hand immediately shot up and without waiting to be called upon a young boy shouted, “I know!  “I know!  It sits on the back of a giant turtle!” The amused teacher saw a perfect teaching moment and gently inquired of the boy.  “And on what does the giant turtle sit?”  The boy paused for a moment then responded, “It sits on the back of another giant turtle!”  The bemused teacher couldn’t help but inquirfurtherthinking that with this next question her point would surely be made.  “And on what does that turtle sit?” she asked.  “Why, another giant turtle!” exclaimed the boy.  “And THAT turtle?” inquired the increasingly impatient teacher.  “Why,” said the boy, “it’s turtles all the way down!”​

    In case you missed the relevance of this humorous anecdote relative to our topic, it is this.  Don’t look for culprits.  Wounds are not healed in a court of moral law as no one is to blame.  Accusations and justifications will go on forever in the search for a conviction, which is ultimately a fruitless endeavor - though the ego will find temporary satisfaction in the attempt.
    Rather, notice the ego’s tendency to contract around your woundedness and have the courage to relax that contraction – without first requiring that culprits be identified.  As difficult as this is it is very important for your spiritual practice and hence for your spiritual journey, because the contracted state of the ego is not in fact protecting you from your woundedness.  Quite the contrary - it is preventing your progress, both psychologically and spiritually.​