A Beef Burger Special

Report-Drama Theater

Presented below is a report … drama style … of an event I experienced recently. I am presenting this report as an illustration of the yoga of discernment with the view that it would demonstrate the way of discernment in social engagements in our daily activities.

 

The dictionary defines discernment as … ' The mental ability to understand and discriminate between relations.' The engagement of the word yoga in connection with it … is an indication of volition. The volition is applied as a rehearsal or practice … such as the reading of the text below … and in understanding rhetoric. Rehearsals are a common way of exercising the mind in its preparation to express and communicate itself … and is a common tool in social practices.

 

 

View I : Curtain 1

 

It was late evening … and the stars were out early. I went to a hot dog vendor … just outside the local 7/11 here … for a beef burger special. As I stood there … I felt an inexplicable feeling of complaint arise in the passions … absolutely not related to anything around me. I ignored it … folded my arms over my chest and continued waiting for the order to be filled. Just then … another customer … built big … came by … and in a tone that mixed command with defense … made his order.

 

When my order was ready … the chef passed it on to his helper … to wrap and paperbag it. I stepped in front of the big man … walked over to the other side to pick up my order … paid the bill ...thanked him … and took off.

 

 

View I : Curtain 2

 

I then crossed over to the 7/11 … bought a chilled can of coffee … and walked to a place nearby … that was like a look-out point over the traffic on the roads … to have my meal. Thereafter I took a stroll back to the house.

 

 

View II : Curtain I

 

As I reached my house … I started the car engine to warm it up. I hadn't been using the car much recently. When I stopped … I felt the same complaint arising … this time it was a notion that a tenant in the house was annoyed.

 

 

View II : Curtain II

 

I went into the house … made a coffee … and sat down at the desk … to view the uninvited guest of complaint. The passions returned to the scene at the hot-dog stand. I had a notion what the issue was. I am at this time … examining the condition of an individual … who comes across something new …  but thereafter transfers the experience to his dreams … as if to say he is not without some notion of it in his dreams … and therefore avoids the volition to confess … to it being new.

 

That is a fond habituation of the mind. In our teen situation … we make contact with dreams … and apply ourselves to it in action. As we move into pre-adulthood … we undertake an extension of the experience … by taking any situation we encounter … as something we dreamt about before. Its nonchalance applied … as a steadying moderation on the passions. Its a natural act of continuity … assurance … from our days as teens … in the face of our introduction to an adult environment.

 

As we continue to engage it as habit … it transforms into a social skill … and builds a powerful assurance and self confidence … but it denies any opportunity to open ourselves up to the event we encounter and to learn from it. The case is common with many people … crossing the threshold from teen to the eventual experience of father.  The thought made me tired … so I retired to bed for the night.

 

 

View III : Curtain I

 

When I woke up in the morning … my thoughts of the previous night had found a cause during my sleepless dreams … and produced an unexplained aggravation of the issues of the evening before. I had a coffee … some bread … smoked a cigarette and examined the issues again.

 

In the mid-age condition of man … our encounter with the physical nature of our activities receives special stress. In doing so … the individual encounters … a sensation of his life lived … that is managed by someone other than himself. This individual appears obsessed with the need for assurance … as if to claim that he has always known everything. He fears admitting to the  suggestion … that he is facing a new situation in life … and that he has to view it by leaving behind past habits … in order to focus on learning.

 

And this is the grand impetus to the learning disposition. It starts by admitting we don't know. Certainly we couldn't possibly have known … the events that unfold … on a day like today … the 20^th Feb 2015. Its obviously never occurred before … and in the changes we experience in these times … is experienced as physically encountering  such a day … for the first time in our lives. Its a case for precision … where precision may be critical in our understanding.

 

Our far wandering dreams at creation may have touched on this period from the beginning … its possible. But our lives today are a physical manifestation of a body … in the life … whose witness to the day … feels different from that held in its original dream in creation. It may explain why we are always in that way saying … ' If I knew then what I know now. ' 

 

In a final sense … the knowledge that we gain … is an evolutionary adaptation … and adds to the pool of understanding in our eternal being (EB). Some may want to call that soul. It moves from life to life … and we are certain it improves the way … we handle our dreams … in the transfer from teen to father. And father in these times … may be getting an exposure to the content of … different lives from around the world … in the way he views his own.

 

I managed to sort out the complaint … and locate its source. But not before I discerned in my insights the shadow of the hot-dog chef … the big customer … the lady who works in the 7/11 … the tenant in my house ... the crisis in Myanmar … and the conspicuous view of the Caucasian bod in the world's presence. It amazed me to discover that the key to the issue actually engaged … the situation in Myanmar. A lady who is closeted … dainty … and unaccustomed to the normal rigors of life … is a poor companion for the bod of a man. Her delicate nature finds fault in everything ...  and she leads the man to the flame … as the moth of transformation.

 

 

View IV : Curtain I

 

I went for a walk in the evening … and mused on the strange sense of relations … we encounter in our lives today. I passed the hot-dog stand and walked on to the petrol station … where I picked up a hot cup of coffee … and strolled into the park next door.

 

It was one of those crimson evenings … when the setting sun cast an indigo-purple hue on everything. Just then someone set off  fireworks … on the occasion of the Chinese New Year … and the sky was lit up with colors and lights … that sprayed like blossoms … over the park. It mixed with the crimson skies to produce a surreal sensation of the birth of the stars in heaven. I sipped the coffee and told myself … its gonna be a new world. I can tell.

 

 

View IV : Rhetoric

 

It occurs to me that someone raised a complaint … just before the big man bod … came to order. That complaint appears sourced from someone resembling the qualities of the lady in Myanmar. Its about the male bod … made in heaven. Apparently a reconciliation is in order … and I'm thinking the folks who understand yoga of discernment … know what's it about.