Thursday, March 20, 2008
How SEEING heals ego-control!
Help me to understand how seeing the ego-control heals it? What is it that brings the healing?
Let's first understand that ego-control means resisting what-is. It simply means "I don't like this" "It hurts me" "It makes me mad" "It reminds me of my inadequacy" "It makes me feel less-than." We control whenever we resist, resent or think negatively about anything. In fact anything that takes our joy of living away from us is a form of control. We are either controlling a situation by manipulating it, getting angry about it, trying to overcome it or resisting it or fearing control through anticipation of it, feeling anxious, nervous, victimized and reactionary.
It is at this need to control for fear of being controlled that we suffer the worstkind of ego-control called...LOSING CONTROL!! Loss of control is where we get-out-of-control through violence to others or ourselves, through panic attacks, deep paranoia, deep anxiety or nervous exhaustion resulting in fatigue syndrome and other physical maladies. We literally burn out from fear of loss of control.
Ego and control (in this context) are the same thing. Ego is separation from who we really are, which is love. And here's the paradox, LOVE IS THE REAL CONTROL. This is the reason why we crave control unconsciously. For instance, here's the power (positive control) of love. Suppose you have an enemy, what would be the greatest power to overcome that enemy? Simply love the enemy. If someone doeasn't like you, you can destroy that dislike by loving them anyway and the effects of that dislike will not touch you.
Now, this is where SEEING comes in. See clearly that all you ever want is to feel okay, to feel loved. Since love cannot be attained because it is who we are already, then we can only express it by giving it away. You cannot obtain what you already are and therefore cannot get love. Love is a 'giving' and NOT a taking. This is the secret.
Therefore the secret of seeing that love is a 'giving' and not a 'taking' changes the whole perspective. Now, the question arises, how can seeing heal control? Another word for 'seeing clearly' is forgiveness. Forgiveness is such a great power that spiritual growth (realization) is not possible without it. With forgiveness spiritual realization is guaranteed.
Here's how it works...
Suppose you have a sincere drive to awaken to the truth of you and thus live from it, what would be the quickest and simplest way to attain that? It is through forgiveness. It is simple and quick but it is NOT easy. The ego doesn't want to forgive because it would mean its death.
Advaita devotees will tell you that forgiveness is dualistic and therefore not real. Yes, forgiveness is dualistic but so is self-inquiry dedicated to Self exploration of our true nature. Bhagavan used to say we can use the mind to go beyond the mind. So here is the crux of the matter, forgiveness has to be fully understood and its power is so great that you don't need anything else for realization of your true nature.
There are three levels of forgiveness and it is this process alone that brings the transformation.
FIRST LEVEL of forgiving is just a game we start out with, however, if we are sincere in forgiving, we will soon discover two things that confront us...
a. How difficult it is to forgive when someone has abused us.
b. How much control is in our nature that blocks the seeing of the truth of love.
If we persist in our drive to forgive, no matter how small or large, then we move into the second level.
SECOND LEVEL is quite a shock because it forces us to see how little we love and how much we like to be in control despite its negative effects of unhappiness, upsetness, fearfulness and anger (separation from love). This second level shows us clearly how many 'games' we have played in our need to be in control and how unhappy we really are.
THIRD LEVEL is when forgiveness becomes real. How? We start seeing, through the help of the second level, that all we ever wanted is to be loved, to be wanted, to be happy and free. We see also how we had used every power in our control-arsenal to sabotage this ease of being. Finally, we see the most life-changing truth of all, there is nothing to forgive at all. And, the moment we see this great truth of our illusion then that itself becomes Quantum Forgiveness. Quantum Forgiveness is the miracle of transformation. This leads you from ego-control to the direct experience of Oneness. This is the true Advaita.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
Waking up is LISTENING -- The 3rd Listening!!
I heard somewhere that spiritual waking up is called the 3rd Listening. Could you elaborate on that?
The "3rd Listening" is the most sacred, highest and noblest 'practice' in clear seeing. In fact, it is the awakening itself. In order to understand what the 3rd listening is there has to be the clarification of what the first and second listening are. There are two kinds of listening initially and they can't be helped. They are not wrong anymore than 'not understanding' is wrong! One is emotional-listening and the other is intellectual-listening. Most people stay in that groove for most of their life never knowing any better.
Emotional listening is listening in a personal way as if the world revolves around you. You hear only what is personal to you. To this listener everything pertains to emotional feeling. When you listen there is often this type of listening...
"He/she knows how I feel."
"He/she feels as if they are talking about me."
Emotional listeners are apt to nod their heads in agreement, which of course means they are NOT listening at all. An emotional listener often exclaims, "Yes, I know!" and they feel good temporarily believing they have learned something. However, soon find out the opposite and complain how they are 'caught' in their ego again.
Then we have the intellectual listening. Intellectual listening is listening to the words literally. They usually have an arsenal of words they use to make themselves believe that they know. And, they usually want you to know that they know. Intellectual listening is also a 'doing' type of listening so that initially they ask...
"How do I do it?"
"What am I supposed to do about that?"
When these basic questions of 'doing' are satisfactorily answered then he/she feels that they 'know' until a crisis in their family life or relationship arises and find themselves dumbfounded.
Then we have the 3rd Listening which is awakening itself. Here one realizes that there is nothing to know or seek -- there is only 'Being.' All listening is 'being' listening. There is no agreeing nor disagreeing because in truth there is no person to do either. The 3rd Listener listens to the possibilities of what is implied. There is nothing to 'do' but understand it is all about BEING. For instance, listening is not a 'doing' but an openness of heart in the moment seeing the deeper possibilities beyond the personal and intellectual. 3rd Listening is a mixture of love and 'knowing' that there are no opposites but that which is all-encompassing as the moment of NOW itself. When the 'teacher' says, "accept" it is clearly seen as a non-doing whereas to the emotional and intellectual is something one does. BEING, which is the 3rd listening, is non-doing. BEING is known as allowing, accepting, loving, surrendering, forgiving and seeing clearly. Here's an example of non-doing as Being...
When you were a child brought up playing in the street with all kids from different races, the question of acceptance never did arise simply because you were not prejudiced. This 'no need to accept' is real acceptance. This is important to understand. Similarly with forgiveness -- when you recalled a bully who abused you and saw clearly how he was abused by his own father, you suddenly see that there was nothing to forgive -- that's true forgiveness. Again, the word 'allowing' is a non-doing but a 'being.' You realized that 'letting-go' was not something to do but an allowing of the moment to be itself just like the child allowing itself to sleep effortlessly. Therefore, in the 3rd Listening you see clearly that there is no 'doing' in awakening but allowing, surrendering, forgiving, loving and Being here-now. There is no past to forgive because it's gone (it's history). There is no ego to surrender simply because ego is resistance (ignorance of Being). NOW is not a present-happening but the content of the present. Therefore, while the present is based on the present time, NOW is timeless. This timeless NOW is known as LOVE. Did you ever forget yourself in the moment of loving your dance or singing or being in love? In that BEING-moment there was no time but pure joy.
In brief, the 3rd listening is seeing no opposite. It is all there is -- just presence of awareness experienced as oneness (pure love).
The "3rd Listening" is the most sacred, highest and noblest 'practice' in clear seeing. In fact, it is the awakening itself. In order to understand what the 3rd listening is there has to be the clarification of what the first and second listening are. There are two kinds of listening initially and they can't be helped. They are not wrong anymore than 'not understanding' is wrong! One is emotional-listening and the other is intellectual-listening. Most people stay in that groove for most of their life never knowing any better.
Emotional listening is listening in a personal way as if the world revolves around you. You hear only what is personal to you. To this listener everything pertains to emotional feeling. When you listen there is often this type of listening...
"He/she knows how I feel."
"He/she feels as if they are talking about me."
Emotional listeners are apt to nod their heads in agreement, which of course means they are NOT listening at all. An emotional listener often exclaims, "Yes, I know!" and they feel good temporarily believing they have learned something. However, soon find out the opposite and complain how they are 'caught' in their ego again.
Then we have the intellectual listening. Intellectual listening is listening to the words literally. They usually have an arsenal of words they use to make themselves believe that they know. And, they usually want you to know that they know. Intellectual listening is also a 'doing' type of listening so that initially they ask...
"How do I do it?"
"What am I supposed to do about that?"
When these basic questions of 'doing' are satisfactorily answered then he/she feels that they 'know' until a crisis in their family life or relationship arises and find themselves dumbfounded.
Then we have the 3rd Listening which is awakening itself. Here one realizes that there is nothing to know or seek -- there is only 'Being.' All listening is 'being' listening. There is no agreeing nor disagreeing because in truth there is no person to do either. The 3rd Listener listens to the possibilities of what is implied. There is nothing to 'do' but understand it is all about BEING. For instance, listening is not a 'doing' but an openness of heart in the moment seeing the deeper possibilities beyond the personal and intellectual. 3rd Listening is a mixture of love and 'knowing' that there are no opposites but that which is all-encompassing as the moment of NOW itself. When the 'teacher' says, "accept" it is clearly seen as a non-doing whereas to the emotional and intellectual is something one does. BEING, which is the 3rd listening, is non-doing. BEING is known as allowing, accepting, loving, surrendering, forgiving and seeing clearly. Here's an example of non-doing as Being...
When you were a child brought up playing in the street with all kids from different races, the question of acceptance never did arise simply because you were not prejudiced. This 'no need to accept' is real acceptance. This is important to understand. Similarly with forgiveness -- when you recalled a bully who abused you and saw clearly how he was abused by his own father, you suddenly see that there was nothing to forgive -- that's true forgiveness. Again, the word 'allowing' is a non-doing but a 'being.' You realized that 'letting-go' was not something to do but an allowing of the moment to be itself just like the child allowing itself to sleep effortlessly. Therefore, in the 3rd Listening you see clearly that there is no 'doing' in awakening but allowing, surrendering, forgiving, loving and Being here-now. There is no past to forgive because it's gone (it's history). There is no ego to surrender simply because ego is resistance (ignorance of Being). NOW is not a present-happening but the content of the present. Therefore, while the present is based on the present time, NOW is timeless. This timeless NOW is known as LOVE. Did you ever forget yourself in the moment of loving your dance or singing or being in love? In that BEING-moment there was no time but pure joy.
In brief, the 3rd listening is seeing no opposite. It is all there is -- just presence of awareness experienced as oneness (pure love).
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Spiritual Awakening -- what does it mean?
I have heard so much about spiritual awakening but I still don't know what it means. I'm a novice, can you help me to understand?
Spiritual awakening is waking up to the truth of your being. Assagioli, the founder of Psychosynthesis said that 95% of our energy is spent defending, protecting and maintaining our self-image -- and it's all an image, imagination! When you ask yourself, "Who am I?" you don't get an answer because there is no one to answer that question. Ordinarily you become confused, dumbfounded or frightened. You are awareness itself and therefore all you are left with when you ask, "who am I?" is just pure awareness and that's it. The mind will want to make something concrete out of that but there's nothing concrete about our true nature because it is not something that comes and goes like matter. It is spirit-consciousness. This spirit-consciousness produces thoughts out of itself and we live from these thoughts (beliefs, ideas, conditioning, imagination and emotions. We make them so real that we identify totally with them. However, we miss something greater that never changes and is both unborn and undying known as pure awareness. It is Presence. It is Being.
Therefore what awakens us from our spiritual sleep is knowing the difference between pure awareness and what you are aware-of. Until we see clearly this great difference we shall remain confused, unclear and have a multitude of questions. We perceive two ways when we read spiritual literature -- we understand either intellectually or emotionally. Both create barriers in our understanding.
Emotional listening is very personal and so we can't see what is deeper than the personal beluiefs and thoughts. Intellectual listening, on the other hand, is literal and listens to the words.
Here's an example of each -- an emotional person would relate everything they hear to themselves where they feel that the whole world revolves around them. They often say, "He must be talking about me when I read him." They are easily hurt, offended and upset at the slightest 'thing' that seems to point to them. The intellectual or literal person take words to mean something separate according to their thinking. Here's an example...
Someone asked me once to explain what ego is and I said, "Ego is resistance. It sees as it conditioned to see them rather than how they actually are. Anger is resistance. Fear is resistance to what-is. Upsetness is resistance to something seen or heard. Depression is resistance to the moment as it is and feel hopeless to control it, and so on. Resistace and control make up the ego. I emphasized to her that ego doesn't really exist at all, it is just resistance.
One day this person wrote me and said that she's caught in her ego and there's nothing she can do about it (of course not!) Resistance resists itself. So, I said to her, "Since you cannot control the ego since ego is control then accept it fully." Some time after she wrote back and said that I contradicted myself by saying -- "accepting an ego that doesn't exist!" Now that's literal thinking (intellectual) and so fails to see what is obvious. In asking her to accept the ego I was really saying, "there is no ego" which is using different words meaning the same thing. However, she took the term literally that acceptance was something for her to do. If she looked deeply into it she would have realized that accepting something that resists, automatically removes the resistance. When the ego's resistance is gone, where's the ego?
Spiritual awakening is usually a slow process because people are divided into two groups ordinarily -- intellectual and emotional. Some are both. When we can see the difference between PURE AWARENESS and what you are AWARE-OF then that's awakening and both the intellectual and emotional take a back-seat and finally see clearly what is actually obvious. In fact, awakening is like waking up from a bad dream and realize it was all a dream. It is seeing what is obvious here and now.
Spiritual awakening is waking up to the truth of your being. Assagioli, the founder of Psychosynthesis said that 95% of our energy is spent defending, protecting and maintaining our self-image -- and it's all an image, imagination! When you ask yourself, "Who am I?" you don't get an answer because there is no one to answer that question. Ordinarily you become confused, dumbfounded or frightened. You are awareness itself and therefore all you are left with when you ask, "who am I?" is just pure awareness and that's it. The mind will want to make something concrete out of that but there's nothing concrete about our true nature because it is not something that comes and goes like matter. It is spirit-consciousness. This spirit-consciousness produces thoughts out of itself and we live from these thoughts (beliefs, ideas, conditioning, imagination and emotions. We make them so real that we identify totally with them. However, we miss something greater that never changes and is both unborn and undying known as pure awareness. It is Presence. It is Being.
Therefore what awakens us from our spiritual sleep is knowing the difference between pure awareness and what you are aware-of. Until we see clearly this great difference we shall remain confused, unclear and have a multitude of questions. We perceive two ways when we read spiritual literature -- we understand either intellectually or emotionally. Both create barriers in our understanding.
Emotional listening is very personal and so we can't see what is deeper than the personal beluiefs and thoughts. Intellectual listening, on the other hand, is literal and listens to the words.
Here's an example of each -- an emotional person would relate everything they hear to themselves where they feel that the whole world revolves around them. They often say, "He must be talking about me when I read him." They are easily hurt, offended and upset at the slightest 'thing' that seems to point to them. The intellectual or literal person take words to mean something separate according to their thinking. Here's an example...
Someone asked me once to explain what ego is and I said, "Ego is resistance. It sees as it conditioned to see them rather than how they actually are. Anger is resistance. Fear is resistance to what-is. Upsetness is resistance to something seen or heard. Depression is resistance to the moment as it is and feel hopeless to control it, and so on. Resistace and control make up the ego. I emphasized to her that ego doesn't really exist at all, it is just resistance.
One day this person wrote me and said that she's caught in her ego and there's nothing she can do about it (of course not!) Resistance resists itself. So, I said to her, "Since you cannot control the ego since ego is control then accept it fully." Some time after she wrote back and said that I contradicted myself by saying -- "accepting an ego that doesn't exist!" Now that's literal thinking (intellectual) and so fails to see what is obvious. In asking her to accept the ego I was really saying, "there is no ego" which is using different words meaning the same thing. However, she took the term literally that acceptance was something for her to do. If she looked deeply into it she would have realized that accepting something that resists, automatically removes the resistance. When the ego's resistance is gone, where's the ego?
Spiritual awakening is usually a slow process because people are divided into two groups ordinarily -- intellectual and emotional. Some are both. When we can see the difference between PURE AWARENESS and what you are AWARE-OF then that's awakening and both the intellectual and emotional take a back-seat and finally see clearly what is actually obvious. In fact, awakening is like waking up from a bad dream and realize it was all a dream. It is seeing what is obvious here and now.
Saturday, March 01, 2008
The difference between pure feelings & emotional feelings
I was told by a teacher that emotions are not pure feelings. Could you clarify this point?
Pure feeling is the 'now' itself where time is not an issue. For example, pure feeling is pure awareness. When you listen to your favorite piece of music you might literally forget yourself. In this 'self-forgetting' there is joy and innocence -- the true spiritual qualities. In other words, the qualities that we cherish such as freedom, love, joy, peace, happiness and inner fulfillment are not qualities at all -- they are the 'NOW' itself. Did you ever feel so drawn to something or someone where you actually disappeared? In that moment you were 'real' and 'egoless.' Did you ever watch performers perform incredible feats of focused energy? In that moment there was no ego (no personal 'I') but pure action emerging from the focused 'now.' Did you ever laugh so heartily that tears ran down your cheeks? In that moment there was spontaneous action from pure awareness. Pure feeling is always 'positive' because it brings out our true natural being of love and oneness.
On the other hand, emotions emerge from thought. The moment we make a thought real it affects the body and creates motion of energy labelled as 'e-motion.' These emotions can literally make us sick and even kill the body when they become too dramatic. Emotions are rarely positive because they are not pure and often tinged with expectations and desires. This is why so many people become psychotic, for example, manic depressives are people who love the high energy of emotions, which by its very 'high' works towards a 'down-spiral.' Anything that goes up must come down. Whereas pure feelings are balanced aspects of being.
The pure state is who you are but the emotions try to emulate the 'aliveness' of being through dramatization and create nervous exhaustion.
Of course, we can't help feeling the power of emotions but we can allow ourselves to experience them in the body without their story or memory. Then as we observe the sensation in the body without the story in our head, we neutralize the effects on our nervous system and unfreeze the energy that was stuck in our center. It is this unfreezing that restores our mental health. Unfortunately, most people take drugs to deal with strong emotions but the result is NOT healing but coping while tampering with the life-force energy.
Fears, which create strong emotions, are to be faced and not escaped from. Every time we escape a fear, we are merely re-inviting its occurrence. Fears are not something bad but signposts showing us where we are missing the mark.
Pure feeling is the 'now' itself where time is not an issue. For example, pure feeling is pure awareness. When you listen to your favorite piece of music you might literally forget yourself. In this 'self-forgetting' there is joy and innocence -- the true spiritual qualities. In other words, the qualities that we cherish such as freedom, love, joy, peace, happiness and inner fulfillment are not qualities at all -- they are the 'NOW' itself. Did you ever feel so drawn to something or someone where you actually disappeared? In that moment you were 'real' and 'egoless.' Did you ever watch performers perform incredible feats of focused energy? In that moment there was no ego (no personal 'I') but pure action emerging from the focused 'now.' Did you ever laugh so heartily that tears ran down your cheeks? In that moment there was spontaneous action from pure awareness. Pure feeling is always 'positive' because it brings out our true natural being of love and oneness.
On the other hand, emotions emerge from thought. The moment we make a thought real it affects the body and creates motion of energy labelled as 'e-motion.' These emotions can literally make us sick and even kill the body when they become too dramatic. Emotions are rarely positive because they are not pure and often tinged with expectations and desires. This is why so many people become psychotic, for example, manic depressives are people who love the high energy of emotions, which by its very 'high' works towards a 'down-spiral.' Anything that goes up must come down. Whereas pure feelings are balanced aspects of being.
The pure state is who you are but the emotions try to emulate the 'aliveness' of being through dramatization and create nervous exhaustion.
Of course, we can't help feeling the power of emotions but we can allow ourselves to experience them in the body without their story or memory. Then as we observe the sensation in the body without the story in our head, we neutralize the effects on our nervous system and unfreeze the energy that was stuck in our center. It is this unfreezing that restores our mental health. Unfortunately, most people take drugs to deal with strong emotions but the result is NOT healing but coping while tampering with the life-force energy.
Fears, which create strong emotions, are to be faced and not escaped from. Every time we escape a fear, we are merely re-inviting its occurrence. Fears are not something bad but signposts showing us where we are missing the mark.
Sadness from Spiritual Seeking!
I have just watched your video-clip entitled "Sadness from Spiritual Seeking" and it struck a chord with me because I have seen much of it. Have visited many ashrams and witnessed the put-on bliss smiles and the veneer of holiness. Why is that so common among spiritual seekers?
The answer is simple -- there is no such thing as a spiritual seeker who lives in true joy. The very act of seeking creates the block to joy. Joy, which is the nature of pure being, is an innocence...the very ground of the spiritual life. Spiritual seeking implies there is something to find or get. In other words, we seek to find freedom, joy, peace, love and inner fulfillment combined with the concept of time. The very idea of attaining the awakened state implies a future time. The awakened state is this 'NOW' itself.
'NOW' beyond time is the feeling-knowing of our true nature, which often scares us. Ask yourself right now, "Who are you?" and in sincerity won't be able to answer it. Why? Simply because there is no answer because there is no 'you.' In this moment, without your past memory of name and form, there is only aware-space. You are that aware-space without an image or visible forms of locality. This is scary to the average ego. And so, pretend to know that we know by having read, studied and practiced for years. The result of this pretence is sadness brought about by unconfessed disillusionment, disappointment or the thought of not measuring up. All this, of course, is deeply hidden even from our own sight.
I have known so many Advaita followers throughout the years who know enough to write a book and answer all questions -- however, when it comes to the truth, there is no true joy and innocence in one's life which are the hallmarks of the awakened knowing. It takes humility to acknowledge one doesn't know the truth when the pretence had gone on for so many years. At the same time, it is this humility that can bring a breakthrough in clarity. Clarity is all that's needed for awakening.
The answer is simple -- there is no such thing as a spiritual seeker who lives in true joy. The very act of seeking creates the block to joy. Joy, which is the nature of pure being, is an innocence...the very ground of the spiritual life. Spiritual seeking implies there is something to find or get. In other words, we seek to find freedom, joy, peace, love and inner fulfillment combined with the concept of time. The very idea of attaining the awakened state implies a future time. The awakened state is this 'NOW' itself.
'NOW' beyond time is the feeling-knowing of our true nature, which often scares us. Ask yourself right now, "Who are you?" and in sincerity won't be able to answer it. Why? Simply because there is no answer because there is no 'you.' In this moment, without your past memory of name and form, there is only aware-space. You are that aware-space without an image or visible forms of locality. This is scary to the average ego. And so, pretend to know that we know by having read, studied and practiced for years. The result of this pretence is sadness brought about by unconfessed disillusionment, disappointment or the thought of not measuring up. All this, of course, is deeply hidden even from our own sight.
I have known so many Advaita followers throughout the years who know enough to write a book and answer all questions -- however, when it comes to the truth, there is no true joy and innocence in one's life which are the hallmarks of the awakened knowing. It takes humility to acknowledge one doesn't know the truth when the pretence had gone on for so many years. At the same time, it is this humility that can bring a breakthrough in clarity. Clarity is all that's needed for awakening.
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