Monday, March 28, 2016

Words - the Glass Ceiling?

      I’m fascinated how our ego (personal) combined with our overuse of language (symbolic) creates a glass ceiling that effectively imprisons us at the level of personal-symbolic consciousness.
     To embody the post-symbolic transpersonal level requires that, for sustained periods, we let go of words. There’s an author who claims to have become "enlightened" primarily by intentionally eliminating “self-talk” - I strongly suspect that this is at least a key initial step.
     The problem, as anyone who's tried sitting meditation for even 5 minutes can appreciate, is that we're afraid - OK scared to death - of letting go of, even for a minute, our image of who we are - our "self-concept." So what's that got to do with "self-talk"? Well our constant internal chatter is ultimately entirely self-referential - all about preserving & puffing-up our own concept of "me, myself & I." Self-talk is the ego's sound track.
     Instead of breaking through this glass ceiling, we begin to realize that it's made of plexiglass, incessantly bouncing us right back into the (tiresome) "story of me."
     So what to do? The only practical option appears to be adopting the attitude of those who are already aware / awake / enlightened: alert, relaxed, kind, patient, persevering, still and - yes - SILENT. And when we observe that we're off self-talking up a storm about you-know-who for the gazzillionth time? We accept ourselves with kindness & patience, and seamlessly return to being: alert, relaxed, kind, patient, persevering, still and SILENT. 

     "… the contemplative ground of all spiritual experience is the same. As the Quaker tradition puts it, the way opens in silence …”
       O’Reilley MR. “Radical presence. Teaching as a contemplative practice.” Boynton/Cook Publishers Inc, Portsmouth NH, 1998.

     “All that is necessary to awaken to yourself as the radiant emptiness of spirit is to stop seeking something more or better or different, and to turn your attention inward to the awake silence that you are.” Adyashanti 

from: Mindful Facebook page

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