Page 43 - NAMAH-Oct-2020

Namah On drama therapy

the therapist, the teacher, the student or “But if you will try to fathom the significance
the supplicant. We don’t have a multiple of your own admission of liking drama or of
personality disorder because we have a the turn towards drama — from which very
central entity that is aware of the various few human beings escape, and if you go deep
roles we play. This is the ego. It manages the enough, you will find that there is something
a
switching from role to role as the suutradhara. in the vital which likes suffering and clings
And as the narrator in the play it establishes to it for the sake of the drama. It is something
continuity, a storyline, a central thread that below the surface, not on the surface, but it is
binds all the others together. strong, almost universal in human nature and
difficult to eradicate unless one recognises it
The Bhakti path looks at life as a pleasant and gets inwardly away from it (1).”
drama, a game, a lila. Often during a nasty
argument, I have wished we were in the We could call the drama that heals ‘positive
theatre of life. After the scene ends, the drama’. It is done consciously, in front of
antagonistic actors would step out of the those who have created a safe environment
stage, meet in the green room, peel off their for the actor. It includes relationships between
costumes, and be their natural selves. We people who are non-judgmental, supportive,
would then share a good laugh together and loving. The negative drama can show up
about how well we enacted our parts during as emotional blackmail, revenge, punishment,
the argument. Wouldn’t it be wonderful passive aggressive behaviour, silent
if all the events we regret were wiped out treatment, anger, abuse and so on. While
clean with the fall of the curtain every day? living life, it is important to be conscious of
Although man is mostly wearing an actor’s the fact that we are role-playing most of the
costume, in his natural home he can be his time. It is then possible to do it for self-healing,
naked self, before his true parents and soul- for communitarian healing, and releasing the
bride. Ever since Eve bit into the apple of ego of self-hatred or self-infatuation.
good and evil, the sense of unnaturalness
has dogged humanity. In Indian myths, Have you sometimes felt like being alone
the Supreme created the Other and the for some soul-searching? Have you felt
subsequent fall, to enjoy reuniting with like taking a vacation from yourself? Or
Himself. Duality was born from unity. In us pretending you are in disguise? You do not
the carrier of the cross of duality is the ego. have to conform to what people think you
are, nor to what you think is good or bad. This
These multiple roles do not mean we cannot be device, the pretend play, is part of cultural
integrated human beings. These are external festivals, such as the masquerade balls in
social roles we play to survive in a collective. Venice, the costume carnivals of the Mardi
Nor are these dramas the melodrama that Gras, and the Halloween parties where you
is the realm of the vital. As Sri Aurobindo get to act out anything from the scary felon to
explains, using the word ‘drama’, not as an the fairy queen. In societies where there isn’t
art form but as melodrama sourced from the this avenue of escape into self-exploration,
turbulent vital: people feel imprisoned in themselves.

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