Prince Lev Nikolayevich Myshkin is a character from one of my favorite novels, The Idiot by Feodor Dostoevsky. Though a grown man, Prince Myshkin is fragile and innocent, exceedingly naïve and childlike to all others, a so-called "idiot" who has spent time in sanatoriums due to his epilepsy. And yet the Prince is a mystifying conundrum. He is totally selfless and loving--much to the ire of virtually everyone he meets--and totally misunderstood by almost everyone who comes into his circle of contact.
The Prince finds deep and profound love for virtually everyone he meets, despite the parade of over-the-top comic caricatures spiraling into The Prince's life (which was obviously part of Dostoevsky's plan). The Prince's naïve gullibility, of course, makes him a veritable magnet for any shyster or scoundrel--for they see in him someone to take advantage of--but it also makes him a magnet for anyone who has that protective, maternal instinct, as they want to shield him from the scoundrels of the world. And the Prince loves--even falls in love--with them all! It's as if The Prince, child that he is, sees the innocent and beautiful child at the core of each and every person he meets. His forgiveness of the angry and hurtful actions that these adults perpetrate are forgiven without question or second thought because he sees the ultimately self-destructive nature of these actions and he recognizes the ancient scars and hurts that each "poor, suffering friend" has received and which have festered over from their own childhoods.
Besides being the central character of my favorite novel from my favorite author, Prince Myshkin is my favorite messianic figure. I think this is due to the "true" or "authentic" feeling that this story evokes in that this "failed saviour" is more intune with what a Christ-like figure would be up against--how he would be treated in this modern age. Also, the Prince's gullibility and willingness to forgive anyone and everyone coupled with his "fault" of falling in love with virtually everyone he met made him not only very dear to me but very near to me, for I, too, have practiced such behaviours--though, I will admit, it was often willfully intentional and, therefore, feigned or false. My own Ego-Personality thought that these were acceptable and harmless means to reaching friendly terms with everyone, means to avoiding the making of enemies, as well as behaviors that would help me to try to remain as inoffensive, inconsequential, and as close to invisible as possible. Though I encountered The Idiot after I had already formed these behavior patterns for myself, Dostoevsky helped validate my choices, helped bring light to my personal "messianic" dreams and desires. I wanted to change the world, to make the world a better place, to affect those people with whom I came in contact in order to help bring out the best in them, to "heal their wounds," just as Prince Myshkin wanted. As I attempted each and all of my vocational and relationship paths, including doctor, priest, educator, writer, husband, father, friend, family member, baker, bartender, and healing arts professional, my primary motivations were always subtle variations on the central theme of wanting to help to improve those with whom I worked, served, taught, touched, reached, lived, or made things for. The Prince tried to do this with his presence. I thought that that could (should) be enough as well. But I went beyond. I chose to do things with the goal that they might increase the chances that I could have a positive, transformative effect on others. Oh, that tricky Ego! Eventually I learned that pushing myself and my agenda on others was forceful and coercive, that these methods were not respectful of other people's personal journeys, paces, and learning styles--just as Prince Myshkin found that his efforts to love equally and unconditionally--as innocent and well-intended as these efforts were--that they lacked the consideration and comprehension of each individual's varying capacity to receive love. All these damaged, corrupted people that he kept attracting into his embrace of love were so jaded as to be guarded with layer after layer of self-protective armor--armor which had served them in helping them survive and deal with the most traumatic events and patterns in their lives.
The emotion-based Earth School human experience is full of layer upon layer of enticing, engaging patterns--patterns that, once started, are difficult to unravel much less extricate oneself from. I think the greatest lesson that the great Russian novelist and his failed messiah provided for me was that it is far healthier--far better for one's health and sanity--to try to pay attention to one's own patterns and issues and work with those than it is to exert all of one's efforts in trying to correct the shortcomings of others. In fact, one will often find that whatever it is that you might perceive as a "flaw" or "shortcoming" in someone else will most likely be a projection of one of your own inadequacies--usually one that you are not ready or willing to look at for yourself (thus, the reflected view of it in others). That is, those things you find most irritating or most wanting to change in another person are most likely things that are your own flaws and shortcomings but that you don't want to see them as such, don't want to deal with them (so you try to deal with them in others instead). If, once again, we could just recognize and accept that there really is no "here" and "there," no "us" and "them," that there is only oneness and commonality, then we could learn to work on healing our selves, on restoring the correct perceptions of wholeness instead of finding flaw and insufficiency in all things. Remember: insufficiency, inadequacy, ignorance, superiority, requirement, disunity, separation, failure, and need are all just illusions--part of the Grand Illusions of Duality that we created specially for our use. We can learn to choose to use them and learn from and through them, or we can allow them to cloud our perception and judgment, even to govern us. Patterns layered one over another over another over another over another, etc., etc. A challenging cocoon to break through, to be sure. But, as we all know from the butterfly metaphor, the end result can be quite liberating. And quite beautiful.
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