Crisis according to the Oxford dictionary means (a) a decisive moment. (b) A time of great danger or difficulty. (c) A turning point, esp. of a disease.

I would like to take the position that we are born with a clean sheet. I would like to suggest for the sake of simplicity that our brain is clear when we are born. The brain in modern parlance is the hardware of our being human. The hardware functions according to the software input. Our lives are a continuation of a series of events that influence the functioning of the hardware. Education, parenting, nationality, religious and political influences, and peer pressure to mention some of the most obvious things will influence our functioning, i.e. the software influences the hardware.

From this perspective we are as humans beings to a certain extent conditioned to behave in certain ways peculiar to our personal history and the way it has impacted on our lives. In yoga terminology we could call this ‘Maya’, which interpreted means ‘Illusion’. As we grow older the influences from our personal past affects our decision-making processes, again in yogic terms these are known as Samskara’s.

We may go through our lives and never realise that we live in a conditioned reality, or we may find that something continually bothers us and disrupts our lives. This something could be called ‘Reality’, a real reality that is sitting at the back of our delusional/conditioned ‘Maya’ experience of life. Another modern analogy could be from the film the Matrix, whereby the mass of culture is asleep and being controlled via giant robots. We take the red pill to wake up, e.g., become disturbed by our personal history. Or take the blue pill, e.g, stay asleep and medicate our selves against these disturbances.

Ok, so to recap we are more or less asleep. At the back of this sleeping is a deeper real reality that in some of us is trying to make itself known. Sometimes when life is at its most difficult we may ask the immortal question, ‘what is it all about?” It is at times like this that we may catch a glimpse of this more real reality. As in the Matrix this other reality feels more dirty and tough, there are no luxurious trappings to keep us comfortable so of course we resist. Freud apparently said that people avoid authentic suffering by creating neurotic suffering. One of the characters in the matrix for example betrays his fellows so that he can go back to the world of illusion. He actually says that he knows it’s all an illusion but the steak that he is eating tastes very real and very good.

So authentic suffering is not to everybody’s taste or indeed anybody’s taste. But we keep being bothered by this other reality trying in its own way to break through. Sometimes it will break though and break down our delusion in the form of illness or an accident or the death of a loved one. We then ask the question, ‘what is it all about?’ or something quite like it?

I am now going to borrow an idea that I read about from a book that I love called ‘Holy Madness’ author Georg Fuernstein. In the appendix of this book he talks of something called ‘Prigogines Dissipative Structures’.

The essence of this idea is that somehow nature is always seeking more efficient ways to function. In a sense then there is an inherent force in nature that keeps re modelling itself into a higher more evolved form. The natural overall system of nature is supported by sub systems. These sub systems support the overall structure, until under the influence of some de stabilising force these sub systems collapse undermining the overall function of the bigger system.
If we apply this model to ourselves as humans with underlying complexes (sub systems or sub personalities) supporting our external manifestation as an overall functioning human personality, we may start to see that de stabilising experiences, i.e. crises can undermine these sub systems and lead us to either breakdown or breakthrough. This is a realistic view based on the fact that most people at some time may question their roles as people etc, and may even seek some form of advise or therapy relating to it.

A practise such as yoga in the authentic sense is a spiritual discipline. In the discipline we make a commitment to see beyond the mundane fabric of a nine to five existence. This commitment necessitates quite a bit if suffering if we are honest with ourselves.

For example we make a commitment to go to 4 classes a week for a three-month period. We make this decision with enthusiasm and off we go! As the time passes we start to feel a little tired and our back may start to ache, it’s cold outside and we don’t feel like it etc, etc. It is under such stresses that our underlying structures or sub systems start to become unstable. We may start to backtrack on our commitment a new voice, (a sub personality) starts to make inroads into our once enthusiastic stance. We think of reasons, very good reasons, why our original decision was a mistake! We may give up on our commitment telling ourselves quite literally that we didn’t really need to do it in the first place. We take the blue pill or we take the red pill. I reckon the decision is Karmically induced. In other words we either is or we ain’t.