Traveling Naked

Have you ever had one of those dreams where you are standing in front of the class and everybody is laughing at you?  At first you are curious as in why they are laughing, then the curiosity turns to sheer terror because you realize you are completely naked.  Everybody else in the class is clothed, but you are standing in the front, exposed, and nothing to hide behind.  Usually at that point I wake up for the simple fact that I don't want the nightmare to continue.

Everybody I've talked to has had some kind of similar dream...you know, the dream where you are the only person naked while everybody around you is staring at you.  As weird as it sounds, I think there is some subconscious nudging of a deeper meaning to this common dream/nightmare...it may just be the voice of the Divine calling us inwardly as we move outwardly and externally.  Let me attempt to explain as briefly as I can.

For the first 8 years of our lives the human mind develops a "bios"...or the "basic input output system."  If a bios is built into a PC it begins a "power on self-test" which initializes and identifies system devices such as the CPU, RAM, video display card, keyboard and mouse, hard disk drive, optical disc drive and other hardware. The BIOS then locates boot loader software held on a peripheral device (designated as a 'boot device'), such as a hard disk or a CD/DVD, and loads and executes that software, giving it control of the PC. This process is known as booting, or booting up, which is short for bootstrapping (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS).  The bios makes sure everything fits into the system in which it was developed and set for.  To deviate from that, would cause problems to the entire system.  

The human bios is a system that is developed from three main source: family, friends, and environment for the first 8 years of existence.  After the first eight years, our bios tests during "start up" any external stimuli and attempts to fit it into that framework.  Therefore, we don't always see things for how they really are because subconsciously our mind (bios) is attempting to force the situation into our internal mold of "how things should be."  It is the second from the bottom of the pyramid on Maslow's hierarchy of needs--"safety and security."  Our bios developed an internal alarm that goes off when things become out of order and disrupts security, order, and safety.  These three (safety, order, and security) are all based on perspective which was developed by upbringing.  I've always wondered how a people in the projects, who live around drug deals, crime, and abuse, never escape.  The reason is simply because their bios was developed in that environment and to escape it would be contrary to what they believe is safe, secure, and orderly.  As crazy as this sounds, it is true.  Another example is alcoholism--it is usually genetic or generational.  Religion is a big one...can one truly escape the confines of the bios of religious experience?  If the religious experience that was developed the first 8 years was embedded with fear and guilt, then naturally the person tries to fit all religion into that mold for the rest of his/her life.  If anything goes against the grain of this line of thinking then an internal alarm goes off to reject it, or it attempts to take it and mold it into that which they originally experienced.  Therefore, their religion is based upon creating it in "their own image."  It is natural process.

Torah seems to go radically against this grain of thought.  The God of the Torah appears to call people on a journey out of the bios and into a new reality.  To say the least, it is scary as hell!!  The internal alarm is screaming for safety, security, and order, and God pushes to move away from this and into something else.  The thing that is even stranger is that this "something else" that God pushes the human toward, is not even defined.  Check it out:

Genesis 12:1: "The LORD had said to Abram, "Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you."

In Hebrew, the ancient rabbis translated this phrase simply as "lech lecha"...or in English, "go out to yourself."  In order to find out who you really are you must somehow begin to hijack your bios--leave the very things that developed it.  If you jump back a few chapters it mentions a similar phrase about leaving, but it also gives the result:

Genesis 2:24-25: That is why a man leaves his father and mother and is united to his wife, and they become one flesh.  Adam and his wife were both naked..." 

When a departure from "the developer" of the bios takes places, a "nakedness" occurs.  There is nothing left to hide behind, new emotions are experienced, and an "exposing" of ourselves to ourselves takes place.   We are confronted with developing our own perspective outside of others.  We are confronted with experiences that we must own rather than borrow.  We are confronted with God outside of the god that was created for us.  God calls us to travel...naked.  That is really uncomfortable and sometimes like a bad dream.  I want to just wake up and go back to what I think is safe and orderly...but if I do, I will never know the reality that exists beyond myself.  Let the story of the Bedouin begin...