You Are Who I Say You Are

How do we love another person? 

It's a cosmic joke - you think you know them, when in fact all you know is what you project on to what they say and do. They are there, but what you see is not them, you see your movie of them. 

It's easier to understand at a simpler level… 

We have this experience going to the movies - it seems so real, we scream; so real, we cry; so real, we fall in love with actors and actresses who will never know our name.  

It's a re-enactment of the projections we make in real life. 

Looking in a still lake at the moon, hearing an orchestral recording, watching a movie. All the same. We feel we see the actual moon, that we are listening to an actual orchestra, that the movie is real. 

And yet if I ask you - is the movie real?  

You're going to say: 

"No"  

Without a pause. With no doubt. 

At this simpler level it is clear. 

However, take it to the next level of perception, and this insight collapses. The stranger, the friend, the enemy - you see them as real, as truly existing from their own side. When you consider it, you understand that your friend/enemy/stranger is not defined by their actions, but by how you feel about their actions… 

Good feeling = friend 

Bad feeling = enemy 

No feeling = stranger 

The decision is on your side. 

Not over there with them, but right here with you. 

You believe that what you project on to the other, is who they really are.  

And yet, if you look at your past, you see that in your eyes: friends can become enemies, enemies can become strangers, strangers can become friends. There can be a constant parade of different projections, often on to the same, one person. 

How can they be all those things? 

They can't. It's my projection. It arises from how I feel about what you say and do. That's why personal responsibility - beginning with my own experience - is the beginning of happiness. The beginning of peace. The end of war. 

Alexander's discovery calls for personal responsibility. 

No victims. You didn't upset me, I upset me.  

Freedom.