Success vs. Control

In a recent correspondence with a reader, I was asked how it is that some “spiritual” teachers talk of success, mastering the mind, and motivation, while others like Tom Stine speak of having absolutely no control.

This raises a key point I talk about regularly. Understanding is an important part of the spiritual journey for many of us. But understanding is all about context.

It’s important to always keep in mind that when states of consciousness change, knowledge, perception and understanding change. We know from experience that our perception of the world is quite different in waking, dreaming, and sleep states.

This is similar in other “higher” states. I find it easiest to understand states by comparing the perspectives they create. Then we can see how it progresses. In a Survival perspective, ideas like success and control are meaningless. Life is focused on simple being.  In a Tribal perspective, we look to the group for guidance, generally feel fairly powerless and see authority as having all the power – be it government, God, or whatever we feel a part of. In its weaker state, it is called Victim thinking. We feel at the mercy of events, others, and so forth. This is a dominant meme today.

Self-empowerment is the next stage, where the sense of a personal me becomes strongest. Most of our leaders have a strong ego. Most of the motivational, success and related teachers speak to this perspective, encouraging self-empowerment, getting one out of a powerless state. At its worst, it is egocentricity.  At its best, self-contained & responsible.

(we can also see these stages in various aspects of child development)

With the approach of Self realization, one shifts into the witness mode. In that state, the me is no longer the doer. Life simply happens. As we are not the doer, all ideas of control are seen as illusion. The world is seen as a play, a lila or maya.

self becomes Self (or no-self), peace, freedom and then bliss become prominent aspects of the experience.

Interestingly, intention and action remain. What changes is who is perceived to be doing/intending. We see life as simply happening, the laws of action playing out within its own field. We stand separate, the observer, liberated from control.

As perception refines, the true mechanism of doing and the doers become apparent. This unfolds into finer feeling values and the realization of the divine.

Finally, there is the realization that I and Thou are One. There is no other. Now one is again the doer, but not as a me. Rather as the one doer, the cosmic Self. This gets increasingly difficult to explain. But it’s like the discovery that all past and future are in the moment. In the same way, all the layers of doing and being are right now, here. They are expressing though this apparent individual vehicle. One is both the doer and the non-doer, the witness to doing. They are discovered to be the same thing.

In other words, the apparently opposite viewpoints of control and no control are each correct for their respective states of awareness. We follow what is most true for us, but keep an awareness of what is a little more true of reality. Where our awareness is going. No making a mood of oneness or pretending. Just being aware of a higher way of seeing.

It’s also not all tidy and separate. We’ll have areas in life where we’re developing self empowerment. Other areas where we’re learning to allow it to be as it is and relinquish the need for control. And other places where we feel one with it and the masters of the universe.

If we keep a general framework in mind when we’re looking at any given teaching, we’ll have a quick gauge of where it’s coming from and thus how suitable it is for us. I’m all for reading Nisgardatta. But for most of us, it won’t be a one step shift. If we’re trying to gauge next steps on the journey, best to look at what’s in front of us.

If you’re living in the world, there is every reason to learn how to use attention and intention, whatever state you may be living. That’s how everything gets done. Even awakening. Evolution is only in our perception of who it is that’s doing. And who isn’t?
Davidya

The Medium is Consciousness

I find it quite interesting how some articles will flow out completely differently than first intentions or original notes. For example, Fixing Negative Emotions was just going to be a compilation of some email correspondence. Something much different flowed out.

Marshall McLuhan famously said “the Medium is the Message“, referring to the medium used to distribute content. TV vs. newspaper, for example. If we look more deeply, we can see that consciousness is the medium. It is the sole medium of perception. It is that which does all looking.

Thus, it is those who read this article (your awareness or perception) that are the medium that causes the message. Consciousness draws it out of itself.

This means that future readers cause present writing. Physics calls this “backward causality”, the future influencing the present. There’s a variety of experiments that have explored this, even as mundanely as a professional batter being able to hit a ball accurately when the ball moves too fast for his body to react.

It’s actually a proof that there is only the present moment. Now or never. 
Davidya

PS – we could also say the message causes the perceiver. But that’s a deeper rabbit hole.

Fixing Negative Emotions

In a recent correspondence with one of the readers of the blog, I was asked how to change or fix negative emotions. They feel they had done the work but were still catching themselves responding in the negative, revealing a still uncleared resistance.

The first thing I suggested was to reframe the whole discussion. It is the judgment that something is wrong that is the source of the problem. Seeing that there are “good” and “bad” emotions.

The deeper fix to such an issue is in seeing that it is the judgment of something being negative that is the key, not what is being judged.

This arises partly from incomplete seeing. For example, we experience a “bad” emotion and feel bad. Then we experience a “good” emotion and feel good. But the good emotion does not last. Soon we are feeling bad because we no longer feel good. And the bad emotion does not last, so soon we are feeling good again.

Is this the platform on which we wish to build our sense of well-being?

What if instead we recognized that we are not the emotions, we are the experiencer of the emotions. Just notice how emotions flow into and out of our experience, like waves of different values of energy. A little like the noise of traffic. We might prefer the look and sound of certain models of cars over others. There’s nothing wrong with preference. But if we protest every time a truck goes by, we’re bound to be unhappy.

This aspect of protest or judgment – that’s something different from the emotions. There is a feeling, then there is the judgment about the feeling. That judgment is the mind. Mind likes to judge things. It can be very good at that. But if we give the mind too much heed, we accidentally give it permission to be the master. Then it will label and judge everything.

If we try to fix emotions by judging them, we will fail totally. Emotions have to be felt. Thinking about it does nothing but make more thoughts. (and more things wrong) But this also doesn’t mean investing in the emotions. That’s going into the mud. Put another way, running out into traffic. Rather, just notice the traffic going by. And let it go by. Who cares if someone likes an orange SUV?

If we notice this play of feeling and judging, we’ll notice some feelings that are pleasant but mind will judge them “bad”. Our sexuality is a classic example. But if you pay a little attention, you’ll notice mind judging all kinds of things bad.

Many people judge ice cream bad, for example, because it may make them fat. It tastes good and can produce pleasure but may be seen as dangerous to a diet. Rather than enjoying small occasional treats in moderation, they avoid the “bad” altogether. This can create an internal conflict that can result in binges or frustration.

Thus:
- allow feelings to flow through, be experienced and leave. If we dwell on them, we amplify. If we resist them, we hold on to them and  reduce enjoyment. None of it is bad or good – it’s just energy.

- allow the mind to tell its stories and make its judgments. But don’t take it so seriously. When we see most of it is just a story, we stop giving it attention and the stories begin to wind down. Mind becomes much more effective as a focused tool.

All of this sounds so simple. But if we’re not aware of who we are, mind feels obliged to try to control life and use emotions to drive it. We unintentionally create a situation where we need negative emotions and judgments to create a semblance of control. We need things to go badly so we can feel right.

Thus, the deeper solution is to have a practice that connects you to who you are. Perhaps some reminder, like noticing who is having the experiences of emotions and judgments.

Then, when the dynamic is seen, we only have to be reminded of it here and there so we can gradually get untangled from the web of drama. Noticing that these judged emotions are all a form of resistance.

The result is rather curious. Those things we have tried for so long to avoid we start to just allow. In so doing, we let them go and they go away. Or morph into something unexpectedly good. What we had so long tried to avoid turns out to have been held by the act of avoidance.

This is why trying to rid oneself of negative emotions is so difficult. We have to let go of the drivers that are holding on to them in the first place.

This is the magic of seeing. Realizing what’s really going on. One can have a Homer D’oh! moment or 3.

Same with the ego. Any attempts to get rid of the ego all turn out to be the ego fighting itself. When we let it go, we see through it and it pops, like a balloon.

In many cases, we simply have to live our lives. What we need to work on will be brought out by the circumstances that arise. We then just look at the places where we feel the most resistance. If that’s not obvious, the places in our life that are not working as well.

At first, we’ll notice after the fact how we’ve been judgmental and reactive. Then during the reaction. And then we’ll start to notice the responses as they arise, when we still a have choice. Finally the drivers will be seen through and the reactivity will wind down. Our buttons will disappear.

When enough of the drama settles down, the love and happiness that has been there all along will begin to shine through. You will see these are your very life and nature. And you will smile, with the grin that does not end.
Davidya

Taking Care

One of the curious dynamics of being human is the tendency not to do what we know is good for us. Certainly some of this is due to things like the addictive properties of some foods or bad habits. But there are often deeper issues at play, dynamics that cause internal conflicts between doing what we know to be right and what we are comfortable with actually doing.

Body weight is a classic example. Poor eating habits gradually catch up with us until we have to do something about it but are now faced with some significant effort to correct it. But then, we often find something unconscious conflicting with attempts to correct behavior. Something driving the habits beyond mere habit.

We can see this best at the two extremes.

There are people who pay very little real attention to their physical well-being. Essentially, they take it for granted, aside from the occasional complaint. They don’t adjust their lifestyle to age, reduced activity, or stress levels. They typically eat mindlessly, on the go, at their desk or in front of a TV or newspaper. They give little heed to the bodies signals for its needs.

Intake can be random rather than at routine times the body can regulate. Sleep is often insufficient, an inconvenience. Care swings between little and excess. Lifestyle is often based on the casually developed habits of early adulthood when it didn’t seem to matter.

On the opposite side are people who pay excess attention to their well-being, fussing over ever aspect. They eat very specifically, often take supplements and eat special diets, have very prescribed routines, and little flexibility.

While there is a high level of care, the mistake can creep in where the fussing is creating an intention that something is wrong. The attention is continually on a perspective of “frail body”. This reinforces wrongness rather than the rightness all this effort is for.

Now certainly, the careless may be typical of someone who’s never had health worries and the careful someone who’s had a serious health crisis. But this is not necessarily so. We’ve all met ill people with appalling care habits and very healthy people obsessed with their well-being.

The key is in balance and moderation. The middle way. It is part of the 8 limbs of Yoga. Mindfulness of what the body needs and what feels good in a non-addictive way. A simple routine. A varied diet of quality foods eaten at regular times, not too close to bedtime. Sleeping until rested.

With a little balance, the clarity can arise to reveal the hidden resistance or story at play that tends to encourage the extremes over simple care.

The longer we spend time at an extreme, the longer it may take us to clear the nervous system of the residues of excess. But that is not something we can judge in another. Some physiologies are quite robust or prone to frailty. Moderation for one person would be immoderate for another.

It can take a little experimentation to find what is right for you. And where the balance point of intention is between making it wrong and guiding the ship well. But if you do find the extra weight is slowing you down, that your back is getting stiffer, your eyes poorer, and so on – perhaps there is a place for more balance in your life. Taking care in body, heart and mind.
Davidya

An Infinite Crash

Awhile back, I wrote about reading an except from the book Collision with the Infinite by Suzanne Segal. Until now, the book hasn’t been available to read but I used the excerpt as an example of a more challenging waking process and the difficulty of an incomplete or tightly held conceptual model.

A friend of mine recently sent me a copy. The author repeatedly emphasizes there is no person there, but the story is a deeply personal journey out of her mind. (laughs)

For me it was also interesting as I knew a few of the players (renamed) and because she had a similar background. But her journey was not typical.

She originally studied a Vedantic approach to awakening where self becomes Self and one steps into bliss and fullness. But her actual experience was more typical of Zen and Buddhist descriptions – she first stepped into emptiness and no-self.

From my perspective, I see these as possible stepping stones to Self and fullness. One must loose the me to gain the cosmic. But if this is not understood, she exemplifies how mind can fight it.

Suzanne experienced a sudden shift while standing at a bus stop. One that included not just ego death but some crumbling of the deeper identity. For her, the bottom suddenly fell out. Her identity ceased.

In her youth, she described inheriting deep sorrow and fear from her mother. In her response to the end of a me, this manifested as a deep resistance to allowing the “emptiness”. As this empty space was now permanent and dominant in her awareness, she found herself in a constant battle of mind trying to understand and control, resulting in profound fear.

Quite possibly, the grip of fear of her core identity had become conscious as well. Without any context, that too would be something else to resist. In effect, this would be fighting fear with fear, fire with fire.

She was liberated but refused to accept it, so she received no  benefits. (although she did acknowledge that her life continued along fine on the surface) It’s a bit like Genpo Roshi talking about as his Fall from Grace, only without an accepted liberation. Adyashanti speaks about the return of the mind after a honeymoon, but she had no honeymoon – until later. It’s also akin to being stuck in the BBQ. A caricature of the possible difficult spots during waking.

This is not to say Suzanne did anything wrong. She did have a very profound and sudden switch that did not meet her expectations of it. And she had a remarkably strong and resilient mind.

Because of the strength of her fear, the bliss was not seen for over a decade.  And because it didn’t match her understanding, she refused to accept early messages that she was liberated. Over the years, she went to some dozen therapists who all pathologized her experience (made it wrong), even the more aware ones. It did not match their concepts either. She herself went on to get a PhD in Freudian therapy, something she saw as seriously flawed. All a good example of how the mind finds resources to support it’s story about what’s wrong. As long as the mind is able to keep some toehold, it will make even paradise a hell.

What was also notable was that she was pregnant when she woke up. Thus her daughter experienced not only her no-self but fear dominated the majority of her pregnancy. But unlike the relationship Suzanne had with her mother, her daughter responded only to the first, stepping into the world a very happy, flexible child who recognized her sense of me was just a story.

Eventually, she gave up trying enough and began to seek more spiritual teachers. Still in disbelief, she got quite a few confirmations before she finally began to accept it. Then she connected to the bliss. And then had her Unity switch.

Later in the book she reflects back on her former understanding of higher states of consciousness and how she came to understand the teaching anew. However, she concludes God Consciousness was the switch from witness to no-self. This is actually a deepening of the Self Realization process. Without an unfolding of divinity, it is not GC. From what I’ve read, it doesn’t sound like she had God Realization during her life. As I’ve noted before, it’s not uncommon for mind-centric westerners to have Unity before GC.

I don’t write about her story as a good example of awakening. It sits too far to one side of the varieties of experience. But in it’s extremeness, it does vividly illustrate aspects of the process that for most people are more subtle. The journey out of the mind’s prominence and into the depths of being. The end of fear. The dawning of peace, freedom, and bliss into who she found she was after all.
Davidya

Shared Vision

Each of us experiences everything uniquely. Every unique point of awareness is a unique way of perceiving the whole. If we have a strong ego sense, we’ll tend to identify with these experiences and say “I am unique, special”. And in a way this is true. But in a deeper sense, it is completely false. All that is actually unique is the perspective, the angle of looking this aspect of awareness is taking.

Blink, and what is unique just changed.

To visualize this, you can close one eye and look with the other. Then switch eyes. Each eye has a similar but unique view. What we experience however is the shared vision of both eyes, synthesized together. 2 unique views in one perception.

Many insects have compound, unblinking eyes. Each facet has a unique view. The insect blends those together to get a picture of the world and a much wider view than we have. Add the other senses and sensings and you can see our experiences have many facets, like an insects eyes.

Perception is thus not limited to the number of sensory inputs. Consciousness, the container of perception, can handle a vast array of input. As all perception is contained within consciousness, there are no limits on the number of simultaneous perceptions that can be brought together. We call this synthesis the universe.

The reason we don’t see it quite like this is simply our identification with certain modes of perception. If we limit our perception to physical sense, that is the only aspect of universe within our consciousness that we’ll perceive. Step out of that boundary a little and you can understand a number of experiences people may have. Untethered perception.

We can also see that the whole remains undivided by a unique perception. It is just a shift in how it is seen.

Because consciousness perceives by moving within itself, perception has a quality of flow – awareness flows and creates perception and experience.

While people at a hockey game may try to establish a wave in the crowd, this also takes place naturally. If you watch crowd behaviour, response tends to move out in waves, like waves of cheering or laughter. Group dynamics are very fluid.

It’s all one flow of consciousness within itself, moving through us, connecting us even in our uniqueness.
Davidya

A Milestone

A small milestone for the blog. This is the 800th post. I certainly didn’t expect to write so much. But life has a way of finding it’s way through available resources. (laughs) 6 more posts are on the way…
Davidya

a daily practice

Submit to a daily practice
Your loyalty to that
is a ring on the door

Keep knocking and the joy inside
will eventually open a window
and look out to see who’s there.

–Rumi

(in the washroom of a spiritual bookstore)

One Prediction of a Golden Age

A 10,000 year golden age is predicted in the Brahma-vaivarta Purana 4.129 by Krisna. Excerpts:

“On the earth 5,000 years of Kali will be sinful and sinners will deposit their sins in you by bathing.” Krisna, speaking to the river Ganges.

“Srimad-Bhagavatam (12.2.31) records Kali-yuga as having begun when the constellation of the seven sages (saptarsi) passed through the lunar mansion of Magha. Hindu astrologers have calculated this to have been 2:27 a.m. on February 20, 3102 BC. This took place some 36 years after Lord Krsna spoke Bhagavad-gita to Arjuna.”
– Vivek Rastogi on his blog

5000 years after 3102 BC would be about 1898 AD. Then…

Krisna goes on:
“Thereafter by the sight and touch of those who worship Me by My mantra, all those sins will be burnt.”

Note that he is not talking about thinking about him but experiencing him directly, by the sight and touch. This is thus not simple worship but direct experience. An awakening population for whom God is living.

“O Ganges, the whole planet will become a pilgrimage sight by the presence of Vaisnavas*, even though it had been sinful.”

“In the body of My devotees remains eternally [the purifier]. Mother Earth becomes pure by the dust of the feet of My devotees.”

It continues:

“For 10,000 years of Kali such devotees of Mine will fill the whole planet. After the departure of My devotees there will be only one varna [outcast].”

It should be noted that when group consciousness is high enough, everyone will experience life as if enlightened. However, if one has not actually become Self Realized, when the age ends, the experience will be lost.

Then:
“Devoid of My devotees, the earth will be shackled by Kali. Saying this, Krsna departed.”

For the full translation of the section, see Vivek’s blog post.

*Vaisnavas = followers of Vishnu, of which Krisna is an avatar.

The Sevenness

I have spoken before about the mechanics of becoming. How the 1 unfolds into the 3, then into the 7. We see this in all sorts of aspects of experience and existence. Chakras, primary states of consciousness, layers of structure, and so forth.

In a discussion in another forum, the subject of the 5 elements came up. In many traditional understandings, the world of matter is built up from a blend of 5 subtle or etheric elements – earth, water, fire, air, and space. (although there is some variation in naming and number) These 5 are also associated with the 5 senses, often described as being created in parallel. The object and subject side of duality.

Why though 5 if the usual mechanism is the 3 (in this case, the 3 gunas) into 7. Well, it turns out there is actually 7 senses and 7 objects. It is simply that the highest 2 are not so physical.

Certainly, we’ve all heard reference to a “6th sense”. Often what they are referring to though is subtler values of the basic 5. Clairvoyance or clairaudiance for example. What we’re talking about is totally different senses.

To understand the 6th and 7th layers, we can use Vaisheshika. Vasheshika is the study of essential qualities. They list 8:
Soul, Direction, Time, Space, Air, Fire, Water, and Earth.*

The last 5 are clearly the elements. So the first 3 can give us clues to the other 2.

To understand, lets start at the beginning. What we would call soul (atman) here is essentially the collapse of infinity to a point. Point value. That point remains infinite but is focused. Focused attention and intention.

When that attention and/or intention is directed, it takes a direction. A vector, the second quality.

As the attention moves along that vector, we experience it incrementally. This is Time, the unfolding of the ‘infinite now moment’  into increments. As the experience moves across time, it unfolds into diversity. Direction through time draws out Space, a container of the increments of time. 3D geometry. Then the other elements unfold into atomic elements** and so forth into the material world.

So Direction and Time are the qualities of attention beginning to express prior to the 5 elements, prior to space and it’s contents. This is the tendency for life to flow in a direction into experiences.

These are the object side of the equation giving us the sense of time and it’s tendency to flow in a direction. Space is an unfolding of that, so has a sense of direction but more in the sense of our movement through it, not of space itself. But space does have a dimensional aspect that relates it to time. Similarly air with space, and so forth. You may recognize the pattern of the Fibonacci sequence in the way they relate to each other.

What are the sense equivalents to time and direction? This is a little more speculative, based on a review of peoples experiences.

The true “6th sense” I would describe as knowingness. What some call intuition or hunches. It is the sensing of the timeline, the flow of life. Due to its nature, we can see this is non-local and thus has no specific physical sense organ. Some may point to the “third eye” chakra but that related to sight. The 6th sense does relate to the 6th chakra though, due to their common step of unfoldment.

The 7th sense is the sense of unity or connection. Our oneness. Most people only have a sporadic or occasional sense of this but for some, it is lived as an ongoing reality. That is when we are connecting to the origin of the senses, the point value of the soul.

This process can also be applied to Sankhya, but it would require restructuring the Indriyas (senses and organs) and Tanmatras (objects). I’m not suggesting here that Sankhya is incorrect. It does fully describe one way of looking at the world. And we can see the organs, the limbs, the hands and feet, all express the value of 5. I am just suggesting there is another perspective which covers more of the human experience. Subtler values of what is.

It also helps us understand more of how plants experience the world. They have the same senses, just not all the same sense organs. They are less expressed, just like some of ours.

If this is a little too abstract for you, it doesn’t matter. Just some musings on understanding the human experience.
Davidya

*Each quality is progressively more dense or expressed. It is thus more resistant to change. It’s much more difficult to move a building for example than to move an electronic “mass” or data. Even easier to move a thought.

** recall these are qualities and thus rule the grouping of elements and valance.