Life on the Mobius

 

 

 

 

The Quaker and teacher Parker Palmer uses the metaphor of the Mobius Strip to express the relationship between the inner and outer self.  Imagine a thin strip of paper, one side orange, one side green.  Let the orange side represent the inner and green the outer.  Green is what we present to the world, the image of ourselves that we want others to see, what you post on Facebook.  Orange is what lies inside that only we have access to.  If you twist the strip then join the edges you get a mobius strip.  Trace your finger around the orange and you come into the green and then back out to orange.  The mobius illustrates how our inner and outer selves while seemingly separate are intertwined.  What happens to us in the outer world touches our inner self just as our inner self colors how we experience the outer world.  But we don’t come to know this without a great amount of dedication to spiritual practice.   

 

When we begin a spiritual journey, we may not yet be aware that we have an inner self.  For the most part, we reside on the outer surface of our consciousness – on the green part of the strip.  We are what we do, who we know, what we think but nothing more than this.  First contact with the inner self can be jarring since there is usually a great gulf between how we are inside and how we are in the world.  If we don’t like what we see inside, we might spend a great deal of time and energy hiding the inner self from ourselves and world.  If the outer world has been unsafe or painful we can spend a lot of energy trying to keep the outer world from touching our inner self.  In this phase, the mobius strip is like a wall that keeps the outer world from touching us and the inner light from penetrating out.  

 

When I was younger, I had little capacity to be with my inner self and existed mostly on the outer green shelf of the strip.  I measured my worth through accomplishments but never felt accomplished.  There was always something else on the horizon that I needed to do in order be satisfied.  “When this happens, then I can really be happy,” was how I lived my life.  Still, even during these years of discontent, I did have moments of childlike wonder and play in which I felt joy.  They were fleeting and felt unimportant in the grand scheme of my life a side show where I played from time to time as if still a child.     

 

Moving along in the spiritual journey things change.  The strip becomes a circle with orange on the inside and green on the outside like a corral.  We come to know the peace of the inner self but only in a few limited places or situations where we feel at home with the inner self. Most of the time though we feel disconnected because the outer circumstances aren’t just right.  We lost the job, the relationship failed, the trip got canceled.  We might spend time avoiding situations which lead to disconnection, seeking safety for the inner self inside the corral.  But this can become a self-made prison and overtime there will be fewer and fewer new things, people, experiences we will feel safe enough to explore.  We likewise allow the inner self to be out only in special circumstances.  But this cuts us off from access to a deep inner well-spring of creativity and joy.

 

For me, for a very long time, I felt that there were only slim and precious moments when I felt integrity, when the inner self and the outer self were in harmony.  This happened when I was very relaxed and present with myself and my surroundings on long walks in the mountains, swimming across cool lakes, dancing.  I felt an amazing freedom and strength in this unity but it would inevitably pass.  It felt special but fleeting and it seemed as if life itself got in the way of my feeling this way more.  A difficult boss, loneliness, disconnection from friends, dissatisfaction with how I looked, unmet expectations, and worry kept me away from contentment, freedom, faith in myself. I longed for the feeling of safety, of coming home, of peace that came only in special moments so fleeting.  While I could feel this way on a long hike by a river, a moonlit swim, sometimes after yoga class, the feeling faded when I walked into the office, was ill, experienced a loss. 

 

Only very recently at the cross-roads of mid-life and with more years of practice under my belt has the circle twisted around itself into the figure-eight shape of the Mobius Strip where the inner and outer are in continual conversation and merging with each other. The veil between the inner and outer is becoming thinner and thinner to the point where I sometimes cannot distinguish between them.  A family member may say something that hurts but I don’t blame them for the hurt as I would have done in the past. Instead, I go inside and see how this hurt has a claim to a still undone piece of my heart  and how with compassion I can stitch into the fold.  I have come to find in the inner self the security that I have longed for, a steadiness, a homecoming, a sanctity.  There is an understanding that there will always be parts undone within me, that there is no perfection but rather always becoming.  Painful encounters and experiences in the outer world are mostly opportunities to reclaim the undone pieces inside so that my actions in the world become more and more pure, present, and aware – like my awareness when swimming in the pond in September.  Rubbing up against friction in the outer world in the form of jealousy, anger, judgement, discouragement, shame are inner thresholds that guide me to wholeness.  It takes great commitment, self-study, and surrender (kriya yoga) but living on the mobius offers a life with less fear, grasping, bitterness, more tenderness, freedom, love and acceptance.