On my knees, with a scorecard.

ON MY KNEES, WITH A SCORECARD

www.OmRupani.org

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

On my knees with a scorecard. Or on your knees with a scorecard. This is a phenomenon I have observed. I think everybody who practices BDSM probably has observed this phenomenon. Feel it's worthwhile to kind of give it a name, maybe a clever name, maybe an image. And this image often comes to my mind of the submissive being on her knees with a scorecard, grading her dom. Submissives will often ask this question. How do I know I have a real boundary I should express compared to how much I'm just resisting, submitting? It's a very important question. It's a really, really important question. It goes. It is as ancient as having masters, having gurus, having people you are entrusting yourself to. How do you know? How do you know you're entrusting yourself to the right person? How do you know now is not the now is not the correct time to eject. Now is not the correct time to say no. How much do you trust? How much do you receive? How much do you surrender? And how much do you say no, that doesn't work for me? It's an ongoing inquiry. There isn't a preset answer for it. And yet both sides of this phenomenon are true and active, and it's worth simply laying out the field. I speak of in the BDSM context, but truly this applies to many connections, many containers, many relationships, anywhere where there is hierarchy, anywhere where one person is entrusting themselves to another person. Who do you entrust yourself to? How much do you follow them? How much do you trust them? How much do you trust them even during times when you don't understand them? How much do you put yourself in their hands? And also at what point do you say no in BDSM terms? At what point do you call yellow? At what point do you call red? In the BDSM framework, we would say the submissive needs to be in active consent. The submissive should be able to call their red at any point. That that is kind of part of the contract. That is what makes this thing work. That if that is not actively present, you are signing up for a breakdown. Then things will happen where the submissive will tolerate something. But they didn't say anything. And they kept tolerating, and now they are just building up the piss-off from tolerating. And on the other side, there is very much the real phenomenon that the mind is really, really clever. The mind hates surrender. It will find every single excuse it can to not surrender. It will give you reasons, seemingly legitimate reasons. And it's for you to decide uh which side you want to side with. Right. So let me talk about the darkness of this particular phenomenon of on my knees with a scorecard. This will be a submissive who will say they badly want to surrender. Uh I often get people, sometimes people who've been listening to me while following my mark, and they admire me. And they think you, Om Rupani, you, I could surrender to you. You are a big enough Dom. You can hold a big enough space that I think I can surrender to you. My red flags go up every time I get uh an admiring energy like that. Yeah, I am very suspicious of it. I'm very suspicious of the big fan energy, and not even that it is always uh manipulative or incorrect. I mean, I admire people. I don't think there's anything wrong with admiring people. I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to be closer to people you admire. I I pursue teachers I admire. I pursue people I admire, I try to reach out to people I admire, that that seems normal to me. But all of human relationships is it's complex and layered, and our darkness runs deep. But then I will I will often perceive this phenomenon, all the games that the ego plays. The submissive will express, I have judged you to be good enough to dominate me. Now, even that is a you will say, well, what's wrong with that? Ultimately, inherently nothing. Because we should have discernment. Of course, we should have discernment. You should choose, choose your partners. If you're gonna submit, if you want to submit, you should absolutely have a criteria for who you want to submit to. I encourage that in people, and yet there is this tiny flip side, this little dark side, that I am here evaluating your dumbness, I am here evaluating your teacheriness, I am here judging you with my scorecard on how good of a teacher, how enlightened of a teacher you are. And I think I can be your student, I think I can be your submissive, but I'm gonna be here with a scorecard, judging you the whole time. And if you make one mistake, oh well, too bad. And it's absolutely your prerogative how you come and how you go. So I'm not saying anything against that. I'm not saying absolutely anything against anybody's right to call yellow or red, to say you have disappointed me as a teacher, I'm exiting. It's absolutely a prerogative. Please exercise your prerogative. And yet, human beings are assholes, and it's like it is really difficult to try and help people. People will also come to me and say, I really want to surrender. Can you help me? I want I want to trust you, and can you guide me? And then people will play these ego games, they want you to guide them, and then they want to sit there and judge you and score you. And I'm like, what game are you playing here? Make up your mind. And for the most part, I just get rid of most people. I'm like, I don't hardly do any personal scenes anymore with people. Too much trouble. With so much shadow, so much complications, and your mistakes today are televised. It doesn't even have to be a mistake. They may perceive it as a mistake, and oh, the big bad Dom handled me badly. The teacher said one thing that landed wrongly with me, and obviously they're a horrible human being and they're an imposter. The stakes have risen so high that teachers have become really gunshy these days. It's kind of an awful it's feel people feel like a bear trap. The students today feel like a bear trap. People who ask you questions feel like a bear trap. People who come to you with earnest desires to surrender, oftentimes it's like they're laying traps for you. They are just waiting for you to fuck up and not even fuck up in probably any big significant way. Fuck up according to their standards, and they're like, uh-uh, red mark, red mark to the teacher, red mark to the Dom. You fucked up. I'm withdrawing my trust. Absolutely a prerogative, but I'm like, this is fucking exhausting. It truly is exhausting. I was watching a Dave Chappelle special, and he did this whole extended joke about doing imitations, and then he mocked his whole audience. And you're like, you're the worst motherfucking audience I've ever had in my life to entertain. Everything offends you. And I feel teachers are kind of reaching that threshold, too. Like, students are sitting there with their scorecards, with their tape recorders, and like waiting for an opportunity to fuck up and expose you and wanting to surrender and then judging you. And I'm like, what game are these people playing ultimately? It's really exhausting. It's kind of crazy. The ego games. And the funny part is I feel both parts in people are genuine. There is a genuine desire to surrender, and then there's a genuine desire to take down. And public figures, teachers, people, people who may be more embodied in their power are like we have like we have a fucking target on our backs. We are the ones to take down. How dare you be this confident? How dare you say you have mastery? How dare you embody your mastery? Let's find out how masterful you really are. I'm gonna trip you up. Let me see if if I if you have if you score a hundred with me, if you score anything less than a hundred with me, you're toast. It's really enough to drive teachers and Doms underground. It's like, fuck these people. Fuck all of you. Right. I I can truly see teachers and spaceholders becoming so tired and disheartened. Like, what are you people doing? Most people become teachers. Yes, we want to make money and we want to make a living, but chances are a lot of us have also felt a calling to contribute, to share. And yet, so often it feels like uh it's not a very gracious space out there, a lot of the times. It's such a crazy mix. The mix of admiration and takedown energy, oftentimes from the same same people. One day they adore you, next day they want to take you down. One day you are the only person they can possibly surrender to, and next day uh you have let them down and disappointed them, and you've made one flaw which they judged, and that's it. And this this feeling of this expression comes to mind. All these people claiming, I so badly want to surrender. I so badly want to, I admire your teaching so much. I so badly want to follow you and understand you, and they like they're on their knees, ready to get on their knees with a scorecard. I don't know. Uh just wanna put this out there. I think this conversation maybe needs to be had among spaceholders for spaceholders. I'm sure there are so many spaceholders and teachers who experience this double-edged sword, this double admiration plus takedown energy all in the same person is like two sides of a coin. I can imagine why people who become public figures they become absolutely exhausted and completely disenchanted with anything and everything that people say, the good and the bad, they just can't receive compliments anymore either. Because exactly the people who worship you one day uh turn around and want to crucify you the next day. It really seems insane how quickly people flip-flop. It is truly uh nerve-wracking. It's like it really has to build a muscle in your system to be able to do this work. And as I said, the the thing is you can't really dismiss either side of it. It's not like a lot of the time the admiration is not genuine. People you we want to move people, and we really to some degree we see we have succeeded in moving people. We've actually reached them, we've actually said things and written things and try to contribute them in ways that they have felt, they have felt, contributed to, and they come and they express that to you. And so you feel, oh my god, my work is reaching people. I'm doing good work. I'm succeeding in contributing to people. Look, look, this person just expressed that. So keep at it, you're doing okay. You're reaching people, and then the flip side comes, and it's really disorienting. It's really quite a ride, this human ride. Uh I am pretty small potatoes in the world. I can I can completely see why people absolutely lose their shit when they become really famous and when they when they garner boatloads of adoration and admiration from people. It is amazingly disorienting at a personal level. And then even through this, I feel like offering the people out there some coaching. I'm like, what game are you playing? Forget about me, forget about uh whatever. What game are you playing? What game are you running? As a landmark forum would say, what is your racket here? Are you really in the business of being an being an iconoclast? That you truly with the real game you're playing is not finding people to admire and follow. The real game you're playing is let me find someone I can prop up so I can tear them down. Right? One part of you is looking for a guru, one part of you is looking for legitimate teachers, and then the human ego comes in and absolutely loads, hates looking up at anybody. So it wants to tear down exactly the people that the other side of you wants to worship. And the person on the outside, the person being moved up the pedestal and down the pedestal, it's like we are just bargaining chips for you, people. We're just we are just part of your game. It'd be better if we don't take any of that seriously. You're building us up today, you will tear us down tomorrow, you're gonna pedestalipe pedestalize us today, and uh tear down the pedestals tomorrow. And it's kind of an ongoing inquiry, like what what how do we exactly manage this gracefully? What is it that people are doing? It's hard to solve this at uh big scale. I haven't found a way, but certainly people who come close to me, people I develop a personal relationship with, people who like I may have a personal dynamic with this conversation really needs to has to happen early. Like, which game are you playing with your Dom? Which game are you playing with your master? Which game are you playing with your teacher? Which game are you playing with your mentor? If you're looking to be disappointed, you will be disappointed because we are human beings, we are flawed. If you're looking for perfection, you're not gonna find it. If your criteria is perfection or bust, then I can guarantee you, you will be your your disappointment fantasy will come true. Every teacher will disappoint you, every Dom will disappoint you, every man will disappoint you. If you're seeking perfection, you're not gonna find it. So if you're on your knees with a scorecard and a red pan, waiting for somebody to make a mistake, even make a mistake by your standards. It's so funny sometimes. You don't even know what you did for people to turn against you, something they perceived. And I'm like, it's just really silly. What what are people doing? What games are you playing? And all of that is also wrapped up in a very important conversation regarding discernment. Does that mean you should uh follow people unconditionally? No, absolutely not. You should have discernment, you should not be like the soldiers with the bad officers who say, I was just following orders. We don't condone that either. You should not be a blind follower, you should have discernment, you should have active consent. It is absolutely your prerogative to say no, to pull back, to withdraw your loyalty, to withdraw your submission, to withdraw your followership. And yet the human ego plays such an active role in this dynamic that part of us wants to find people we can idolize, part of us wants to find people who can be of use to us, who can guide us, that we can look up to. And there's another part of us that absolutely hates those people because uh the ego does not like being lower than anybody, and the student is lower than the teacher. Right? The student has placed the teacher on a pedestal and said, This person is worth following, this person is somebody I want to learn from, which means they know something I don't, and the ego hates that. Ego doesn't like it. The ego, your ego thinks your submission is an inferior position. Right? Objectively, it isn't. Objectively, a student is not inferior to a teacher. Objectively, a submissive is not inferior to a dom. But the ego thinks the teacher is a superior position, the Dom is a superior position. So the genuine item in you, the true student in you, the true submissive in you wants a place where they can bow down. When they find a place they can bow down, that actually means they found a treasure. They have found someplace where they can get enriched. Right, a student who has found a teacher worth following should celebrate. They found a teacher who can enrich them. But the human ego thinks being a student to a teacher is an inferior position, and some part of you will always want to cut down your teacher. And the energies flip flop within the same person so often. Right. So I I get a front row seat to all these phenomena. Personally, as a man, as a dom, as a public figure. And then also as a teacher who's guiding couples. Because I'm guiding couples where the man is in the leading position and the woman is in the followership position. So all the shadows of the follower. I have a front row seat to it. All the shadow aspects that come out from the follower position and the submissive position. That's what this talk is about. And this is a shadow piece of the follower. This is a shadow piece of the submissive. On your knees with the scorecard. On your knees with a scorecard and a red pen. Grading your teacher, grading your Dom. Part of you wants to be on your knees in front of a person worthy of your surrender. Another part of you simply fucking hates being on your knees. Because you think surrender is weak. You think surrender is inferior. That's your shadow. That's the follower's shadow. When I am the follower, that's my shadow to deal with. All of us in the follower position, we have to grapple with this ego piece. And those who are in the Dom position, the teacher position, uh all this stuff gets projected because the shadow is clever. It will find a legitimate reason. And the legitimate reason it'll find is it'll say, I thought you were deserving, but you actually aren't. I thought you were good, but you actually aren't. And from the perspective of the teacher or the Dom, I'm like, I'm I'm eating the same cornflakes every day. I wake up on the same side of the bed the bed every day. I take my shit at the same hour every day, I eat the same food every day, I am just teaching the same shit every day. I don't know what you're perceiving that I was golden yesterday and I'm a piece of shit today. I don't even know what I did different. It's really amazing. But the same people will, you were amazing yesterday and you're a horrible person today. And you're like, okay. It's not particularly pleasant being at the receiving end of all those projections. Something to grapple with. Truly makes me want to quit. It's very disheartening. It really because it it it kind of really it's corrosive to feeling there is a genuine bridge between people. When people flip flop on you that way, it's not a good feeling. It's like you can't really trust people. It's almost after a while you have to shore yourself up against betrayal. Because experiencing betrayal is so painful that now when people come to you and say, You're amazing, I love you, I want to get to know you, and I want to have a scene with you, and I want to be close to you. Part of you is like, Well, let's see how this person feels about me tomorrow. And I don't know, maybe there's a better way to do it. I'm I'm still in process. But I can certainly see that happening, that guardedness, sometimes, many times in my system, and I'm like, well, we shall see. Let's see how long this love lasts. Because I've seen so many people flip-flop from your amazing to your horrible, that I'm like, uh really uh becoming a stoic, really clinging on to Marcus Aurelius' meditations and like, okay, I love you, okay, I hate you, okay. It's really crazy. Anyway, that's the message for the day. I I would only encourage, I don't I don't even know where to close it. I'm like, yeah, I would I would close it by saying to all of us, me included, because we all we are all followers, we are all submissives, we all are looking for teachers, mentors, guides, gurus. And I think this is something we should all maybe spend a little more awareness into and grapple with it. The shadow of the follower, the shadow of the submissive. How much we project onto our teachers, how much we actually want to destroy exactly the people that we admire with all our hearts, because that is the game that the human ego plays. And if you think you're beyond it, you'll just run this energy in the shadow. So I would encourage anybody, certainly, certainly all the women who may be drawn to surrender and submission, all the women who may be thinking, I want a dominant man, I want a strong man, I can get down on my knees in front of. This phenomenon, as I say, I get a front row seat. And I know these women's desires are genuine. I know they're not lying. They are like, no, I actually they have felt the sweetness of submission. They have felt the sweetness of surrender, they have felt the sweetness of finding a man who is deserving of their surrender. So I know that part is also genuine. If we could only just dismiss it categorically, we would be done with the problem. I know that that desire is genuine. The desire to get down on your knees is genuine. And then the phenomenon of pulling out your scorecard and grading your Dham and cutting them down is also genuine. So I would say whenever you're in the follower position, whenever you're in the submissive position, maybe try and bring more awareness into this shadow piece that exactly the people you admire and you're drawn to, how much do you also want to destroy those people? How much do you also want to cut them down? How much do you actually want them to fail you? It's really crazy. It almost seems like that's what the person is looking for. Like, please fail me so I can finally put an F on my scorecard, and I can start that part of the journey of becoming disillusioned with you and writing you off and going on Facebook and telling people what a horrible piece of shit you are, and not to take you at your face value, that ultimately they will find out like I have what an imposter you are. And it's like, okay. Do that too.