Most of our thoughts are just echos of our conditioning. Remaining identified with the stream 'self-talk' or internal narrative - 'normal' level of thinking - is choosing to continue living a nightmare. “We are here to find that dimension within ourselves that is deeper than thought.” Eckhart Tolle We can access, & can integrate, a far deeper, far more evolved level of consciousness than the ordinary discursive (egoic) thought level that got us into the global mess we're in. We must re-discover, integrate & embody our authentic, mature, evolved Self and become the change we so desperately need right now.
"The most important question a human being needs to answer according to Einstein: " 'Is the universe a friendly place or not?' ... If we believe that the universe is unfriendly ... peace will be elusive at best." Joan Borysenko. “Fire in the Soul. A New Psychology of Spiritual Optimism.” Warner Books, 1993.
"A human being is part of the whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. We experience ourselves, our thoughts & feelings, as something separate from the rest - a kind of optical delusion of consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures & the whole of nature in all of its beauty. The true value of a human being is determined primarily by the measure and the sense in which s/he has attained liberation from the (separate) self.... We shall require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive."Albert Einstein 1934
"Without a global revolution in the sphere of human consciousness, nothing will change for the better in the sphere of our being as humans, and the catastrophe towards which this world is headed - be it ecological, social, demographic or a general breakdown of civilization - will be unavoidable. . . The salvation of this human world lies nowhere else than in the human heart, in the human power to reflect, in human meekness and in human responsibility." Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic, in his historic address to the U.S. Congress many years ago
"When a system is
far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have
the capacity to lift the system to a higher order." Illya Prigogine,
physical chemist & Nobel laureate
"Never cease to stand like curious children before the Great Mystery into which we were born.” Albert Einstein
“I would define love very
simply: as a potent blend of openness & warmth, which allows us to
make real contact, to take delight in and appreciate, and to be at one
with – ourselves, others, and life itself. ... love is the central force that holds our whole life together & allows it to function." John Welwood. "Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships. Healing the Wound of the Heart." Trumpeter, 2006.
"To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen
"I was born when all I once feared I could love.” Rabia Basri
"Once we are willing
to be directly intimate with our life as it arises, joy emerges out of
the simplest of life experiences." Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara
During meditation “you are not escaping the world; you are getting ready to fully embrace it.” Christine Skarda
You, like many others, probably have some fear & anxiety about having dental or medical procedures like fillings, blood tests, colonoscopies etc. You might start worrying days ahead, thinking of worse-case-scenarios, pain, unlikely mishaps, etc and even have some sleepless nights beforehand. When you arrive for the procedure, you're likely tired, stressed & hypervigilant, ONLY noticing & MAGNIFYING any negative perceptions that confirm your worries, while OVERLOOKING or DISMISSING all positiveperceptions - "negativity bias." Afterwards, you're exhausted, mulling over how terrible it was, complaining to all who'll listen.
You have everything to gain if you try this very simple experiment. Decide ahead of time to focus all of your attention on radiating kind wishes to the people who'll be treating you: dentist, assistant, physician, nurse, etc. Instead of agonizing, worrying & scaring yourself, remember to be the continuous source of kindness & good wishes towards those looking after you. FEEL the warmth, love, good wishes, radiating from your chest, as when watching a sleeping beloved child, partner, or pet, and radiating loving energy to them. As soon as you feel fearful contraction, let it drop, and focus on being the open-hearted source of love, kindness, encouragement, gratitude towards these folks who are helping you. Notice also how you feel when it's all over, compared to how you usually feel. I had advised someone, who was very apprehensive about dentistry, to try the above intentional shift fromfearful contractiontobeing the source of nurturing kindness. He just reported to me that he had 3 excellent experiences using this technique for his last 3 dental appointments, which included a root canal & an implant placement.
This shift fromfearful contracted self-concern / frightened childtowise, loving elder is a natural evolutionary step we will all make sooner or later, AND it has to & will eventually involvenot just dental/medical visits, butevery aspect of our lives.
“It is not how much we do, but how much love we put in the doing. It is not how much we give, but how much love we put in the giving.” Mother Teresa
Our son, Mike Lovas, pointed us towards Charles Eisenstein's 70-minute interview - an intelligent, realistic overview of our present global situation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggdmkFA2BzA
"To be enlightened is to be intimate with all things." Zen Master Dogen
"I was born when all I once feared I could love.” Rabia Basri
"Once we are willing to be directly intimate with our life as it arises, joy emerges out of the simplest of life experiences." Roshi Pat Enkyo O'Hara
“If we really were in love with the planet, and incorporated that love into all of our systems, into our money system, we would not have an ecological crisis.” Charles Eisenstein “If an economy is operating outside of ecological limits, then the inevitable conclusion is that it’s going to completely erode the resource base until it implodes or collapses. So really, the choice that we have is to design and develop an economy that operates within ecological limits. That’s our only safe bet. It’s our only bet at all.” Shane Ward Living the Change: Inspiring Stories for a Sustainable Future (2018) – Watch this EXCELLENT, INSPIRING 86-minute Documentary:
Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference. Reinhold Niebuhr - later adopted & popularized by Alcoholics Anonymous & other 12-step programs
The Serenity Prayer (above) is fairly well-known, and takes asimple black-and-white approach, dividing life into controllable vs uncontrollable aspects. We love simplicity so much that we make simple models of even the most complex experiences, then pretend that our simple models are the real deal. Below are deeper, more nuanced understandings of life's complexities.
The process of maturation or evolution seems to involve a step-wise release / healing of addictions, phobias, traumas, dogmas / exclusivisms, neuroses / hangups, magical thinking, must-haves / must-avoids, prejudices, spiritual bypassing, etc. The most dramatic way we can evolve is from severe trauma that causes collapse of our world as we know it, including our model of it: our self-concept / worldview, forcing some of us to build progressively more inclusive self-concepts / worldviews. Such shifts tend to be from exclusive self-concern (egocentric), towards a balanced concern that increasingly includes others & the environment (allocentric & ecocentric), even according to secular models of wisdom - eg: http://www.robertjsternberg.com/wisdom
In the quote below, "Spirit" is used to point to "something greater" than the individual self - a transpersonal consciousness, Universal Intelligence, "Self", Quantum Field, etc (this includes Christian mysticism but little to do with dogmatic proprietary religious exclusivism). “When an addict ‘bottoms out,’ what this really
means is that his or her personal willhasbroken down. And when our
personal will has broken down, a whole different force comes rushing
into our system. It’s the force of Spirit, and it can now become
operational, because we are no longer avoiding it through grasping at
personal will.” Adyashanti.“The End of Your World. Uncensored Straight Talk on the Nature of Enlightenment.” Sounds True, 2010.
“The Serenity Prayer rotates around a kind of social convention – the idea that virtually everything answers to the following description: can you control it, or can’t you? That’s the whole axis around which that prayer rotates. Can you control it, or can’t you? So my simple question is, ‘When did human life – the inner life, the intra-psychic life, the interpersonal life – when did it become a matter of the irreducible constant by which you calculate every move, every decision, every relationship, every self-understanding? How did it come down to, ‘Can I control it, or can’t I?’ Because surely you can hear in there the addiction to control as the principle understanding of why everything happens the way it does, or why it doesn’t. Why you feel this way, or why you don’t. So what is grief? It’s an antidote to the Serenity Prayer – not methadone, antidote. It doesn’t replace the Serenity Prayer’s function. It doesn’t replace an old understanding of control with a new understanding of control. What grief does, is essentially let you in for this: the world is bigger than you. The ways of the world are bigger than your decisions & belief systems about it. And your proper posture in the face of the world is humility, not control. It’s taking a knee, not taking more of what you need. So that being the case, you know the old adage, 'the best way to make the gods laugh is telling them your plans.' So grief it seems to me is a kind of skillfulness, not a coping strategy. So you can feel all manner of things in the presence of ‘your grief’ - for example, joy is utterly compatible with this understanding of what it means to grieve. Because when you grieve, some aspect of that action is affirming life. In its most heart-rending appearances, grief still affirms life & the ways of the world. A formulation that came to me years ago that I’m very fond of & proud of goes something like this: I wondered to myself one day, ‘What is the lived relationship between grief and love? Because oftentimes, people, particularly in the throws of real heartbreak, will understand these things to be absolute & polar opposites, and hostile to each other. And in fact, you craft love so as not to have to grieve. And by the time grief rolls in, it’s because it’s devastated your capacity to love. So these things are implacable adversaries. I don’t think so at all. I think that one is the midwife to the other in fact. So it could go something like this. Love, you could say, has a relationship to grief that’s unsuspected & unsought. And it might be this, if grief is a way of loving those who have slipped from view. And I think anybody listening to this would say, ‘Well certainly that’s in the mix.’ Grief is a way of loving. It’s an expression of love in a fashion. You wouldn’t grieve over something that you didn’t have a deep-running attachment to in some fashion as it slips away. So grief is a way of loving. Yes. That which has slipped away. Got it. You’re going to turn this on it’s head aren’t you? Yes. And I’m going to submit to you, ‘Love is a way of grieving that which has not yet slipped from view.’ But love is whispering to you, and grief is whispering to you, ‘That that’s a time-limited arrangement.’ Did you realize that, be you a Buddhist or not a Buddhist, something about grief is teaching you about the impermanence of things. Even grief itself is impermanent. And that impermanence tempers your understanding of love – that love’s not eternal, that the object of your love is not eternal either, and that you’re doing all you can to get your love in order NOW, not only for the heavy weather, but for the end of the weather, for the end of the time that you’re alotted to be able to do it. So imagine then, that love is an active form of grieving, that doesn’t require sadness or misery, but it stops you from time to time. And if you have children in the world, I mean anybody who does, knows what I’m going to say next. That you look at them occasionally, and if you can bear the thought, one of the things you realize is, you dragged them into this world to die. That’s what you did to them. You didn’t mean to. You didn’t even think of it at the time. You may not even have thought of deliberately making a child, in the moment that you did. But all of that’s besides the point. And that kid’s over there, making a fool of themselves as an idiot teenager, whatever they’re doing, right? And some part of you is awash in a kind of bottomless sorrow - that’s not sad. It’s somehow deeper than sadness. It’s the most adult version of sad – the realization that you’ve put in motion things that will deliver genuine heartbreak to people that you claim to love. And that’s what you did. And it’s a package deal. And some part of you wants to take them aside and just apologize. And of course they’ll look at you and say, ‘What?’ They have no idea what you’re talking about – right? And you realize that you’re in this alone, for the time being. They’re not old enough to know how sorrowful you’ve become over what you’ve done to them. It’s an amazing stew of impossible-to-resolve things. And if this stuff has its way with you as you age into your days, your capacity to stand & deliver, informed by this kind of understanding, is really one of the most politically, socially & psychically dangerous powers that a human being can have - the understanding that it won’t last. Don’t get me wrong – it can go dark. Of course it can. You can decide that nothing means anything. That your attachment to people and social institutions & so on, is irrelevant & meaningless, because it’s all going to burn away like chaff. You can do that. But there’s no grief in that. There’s resentment & hostility & grief is gone. But if grief informs your understanding of the impermanence of life, it deepens your attachment to life. It doesn’t increase it. It doesn’t mean you hold onto it tighter. It means you deepen your capacity to love knowing how, like dust it is. You know Leonard Cohen, my countryman, has a line for everything. He’s got a line for this too. In one of his songs he says,
'Oh my love, be not afraid, we are so lightly here, it is in love that we are made, in love we disappear.'
You can’t improve on that. It’s all there. ‘Be not afraid’ – that’s the recipe. Not, ‘hold on tighter.’ He was in a Zen monastery in California, and he took his vows & the whole thing. And as he told the story, after he came down from the mountain, his teacher looked at him one day really hard & long – perhaps like a parent looks at a child, the way I described earlier – and he said to him, ‘older you get, lonelier life becomes, greater love you need.’ That was his recipe. If you listen carefully, he didn’t say, ‘lonelier life becomes, greater love you need to get for yourself so you’re not so lonely.’ He didn’t say that. Because this isn’t the solution to loneliness. This is a radical act that comes from an understanding of loneliness. ‘Deeper love you need’ to be, or to do, or to deliver to the world – not to get for yourself. That’s dangerous. In a culture that believes in taking care of yourself & protecting & so on, the notion that your appetite for being able to make love deepens as you realize its impermanence & its limits. That makes you an elder in training. It’s very dangerous to the status quo and my favorite kind of trouble.” Stephen Jenkinson (part 1 of 7) "Elderhood in a Time of Trouble" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bSIlixSuMYQ
We're so used to being stuck in the rut, the echo-chamber of our petty self-concerns. But if we're fortunate, we'll get the opportunity to be able to fully, deeply experience pain of sufficient severity & duration, that we'll know with absolute certainty that this pain is far too great to be one person's, that surely we must be experiencing the collective pain of the entire human race. If at that point we willingly endure & process it for the benefit of all, the crazy intense suffering unexpectedly MIGHT transmute into bliss - little me opens to a mystery that's infinitely greater - the small individual screaming for relief & love becomes, temporarily, the Source of relief & love for all. This is a mysterious alchemical shift between realities - personal to transpersonal / universal? matter to energy? Newtonian to Quantum? physical to spiritual? human to divine? created to co-creator? - all of these?
"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us." Marianne Williamson "Of course, not all people grow from crisis. Some refuse to accept the need for redefinition, and orchestrate their own intellectual and emotional shutdown. Those who do grow manage to stay awake to the anguish, confusion, and self-doubt. This requires a high tolerance for discomfort, as well as the ability to see the world as it is, not as they wish it to be. Over time, the people who continue to struggle emerge wiser, kinder and more resilient. After they have broken & rebuilt themselves, they feel less breakable. Living is a complicated process, a journey of discovery that never ceases. As I grow older, the basic facts of life seem increasingly simple. The closer we live to our core, the more we realize that we are like other people. My fear and sorrow are yours, as is my harsh self-judgment. My desire to be good and to feel loved is your desire, too. We all seek peace." Mary Pipher. "Seeking Peace. Chronicles of the Worst Buddhist in the World." Riverhead Books, 2009.
“Mindful awareness is fundamentally a way of being – a way of
inhabiting one’s body, one’s mind, one’s moment-by-moment experience. It
is a natural human capacity. It is a deep awareness; a knowing and
experiencing of life as it arises and passes away each moment. Mindful
awareness is a way of relating to all experience – positive, negative, & neutral – in an open, receptive way. This awareness
involves freedom from grasping and from wanting anything to be
different. It simply knows and accepts what is here, now. Mindfulness is
about seeing clearly without one’s conditioned patterns of perceiving
clouding awareness, and without trying to frame things in a particular
way. It is important to learn to see in this way because how a
person perceives & frames the moment generates their reality.” Shauna
Shapiro PhD
Our brain, according to an increasing number of experts, acts as a "reducing valve" to prevent us from being overwhelmed by the infinite amount of information that surrounds us. The efficiency of this reducing function differs for each individual, resulting in very different perspectives. Anextremely inefficient reducing valve can result in data overload, making navigating the world impossible. However, an extremely efficient reducing valve
can give a false sense of certainty that one's extremely narrow worldview is
accurate & all encompassing - that nothing outside of it can possibly exist. There are very popular secular ("scientism") and religious versions of such dogmatism. Simplified, easy-to-understand models of reality, to which everyone must conform, provides a temporary hiding place from reality - which is awe-inspiringly complex & ever-changing! Between these two extremes, is an infinite range of possibilities: markedly increased perceptual awareness, amazing creativity, & incredible skills in every arena: communication, visual arts, music, math, etc. Some instantly shut down & walk away when faced with above-average skills & capacities. Their narrow, rigid, mechanical worldview & identity would be shattered if they were to admit that extra-ordinary things can & do occur. No amount of data, evidence, or reasoning can cure this fearful emotional reaction, any more than it's possible to reason people out of a phobia. All of us have a (mostly unexamined) small box with walls or 'boundaries' - whatever's inside, we accept as 'real' & safe; everything outside, 'can't be real' & is terrifying. I've noticed that those who seem to have the most rigid boundaries, around the smallest 'box' are the most susceptible to having their boundaries / box blown wide apart by trauma eg a good friend & devoted family-man, who was rigidly anti-religious, unexpectedly lost his prestigious, high-paying job. He then suddenly abandoned his wife & children, joined a religious cult, changed his name, and moved to another continent. Many eventscan & will rock our world, both mundane (eg accidents) and "out of the ordinary" (eg NDEs) : http://www.johnlovas.com/2021/03/fascinating-overlap.html What's critical is learning to respond to shocks to our system in a way that transforms us into wise elders, instead of shrinking & hardening us into bitter victims! Wise maturation involves progressively expanding our horizons, opening up our mind & hearts, and exploring the ever-expanding, wondrous universe - our 'box' endlessly enlarging, its 'walls' / 'boundaries' becoming more & more porous to all that is. “People have accessed the higher realms through near death experiences, through mystical encounters, or through meditation. Others have had a sudden insight or ‘aha’ moment. All doors lead to the same place: a transcendent recognition that our true nature is spiritual, not physical. There often is a simultaneous awareness that we are all interconnected and that we are somehow manifestations of one energy.” Brian L. Weiss, Amy E. Weiss. ”Miracles Happen. The Transformational Healing Power of Past-Life Memories.” HarperOne, 2012.
Natalie Sudman's near death experience (NDE) carries a wonderfully liberating, uplifting message for those of us with the 'bandwidth' to hear it:
"I’ll try to describe some of the qualities & perspectives that were present in all the environments that I experienced (in my NDE). … In this non-physical state of being, there’s a profound sense of belonging. Everything about everyone that exists is not only accepted, but admired, respected, recognized & celebrated. There’s a cooperative co-passion for being that permeates everything that I experienced. Everything there is effortless. It is just so easy. It’s blissful, and it’s filled with a joy that is so fundamental, it’s only really remarkable from outside of that state of being. So imagine that everything you have ever thought, imagined, experienced, dreamed or created, was recognized to be valuable to you yourself and everyone else, to all that exists. Imagine that no matter what you do or how you express yourself, you belong and are valued. This is true. What was known to me, what was so basic as to be assumed was just that. That we are each intrinsically valuable, and everything we experience matters, not just to ourselves but to each other, and to all that is. I use the phrase ‘all that is’ instead of God, Source, Universe, whatever – a lot of those words have just personal connotations that limit my ideas. And so when I say ‘all that is,’ it includes all that is. That’s the term that I’ll be using. My experience is that we are always within and expressions of all that is, which is a beautiful force of infinitely curious and creative energy & awareness. How can we be anything but perfect. We are all that is, just as much as it is us. We are created by it; it creates us. We participate in it; it participates in us. We extend it; and it extends us. We are each individual expressions of the single infinite awareness. We are one. And we are each perfect, exactly as we are.” My Near Death Experience in Iraq - Natalie Sudman :https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8lQs1MccoU&t=225s
Natalie Sudman. "Amplification of Impossible Things. My Near Death Experience in Iraq." Ozark Mountain Publishing, 2012. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Our ideas of the world, ourselves, others, life itself, are heavily influenced by our past experiences - predominantly early negative / traumatic ones:http://www.johnlovas.com/2021/10/whats-this-all-about.html Other powerful influences include current societal trends: "materialism, hedonism, narcissism & nationalism, as well as a coursing
nostalgia for a world that never really existed.”James Hollis
So our heads are usually crammed with self-talk about all of the above, with little space left to clearly see, & intelligently deal with here-and-now reality! Self-talk is the echo-chamber of the noisy ego. For a balanced, appropriate approach to life, we need to cultivate a quiet ego, so we may approach life with far deeper intelligence. I highly recommend Iain McGilchrist's talks & books on balanced left- & right-hemisphere: https://channelmcgilchrist.com/
“A monk asked
his teacher, ‘What are you thinking of in that immobile sitting
position?’ ‘I think of not-thinking,’ replied the teacher. The monk
asked again, ‘How do you think of not-thinking?’ ‘Beyond thinking,’
replied the teacher. ‘I think of not-thinking’ is a key
teaching of our practice. Thoughts come. We do not try to exclude them.
Our effort is to leave them alone as much as possible and let them go on
their way. Not-thinking, or zazen, is how the universe thinks. We are
this undivided, unfabricated movement of energy in the universe. You can
call this ‘beyond thinking.’
Suzuki Roshi told us, ‘When you say, “Yes!” you forget all about yourself, and you are refreshed into some new self. Before the new self becomes the old self, you should say another, “Yes!”’ When we can see things as they are, we are nobody special anymore. You can’t see things as they are when you have a self. When you keep saying yes and keep finding a new self, it takes you into the unknown. We keep finding a new self and don’t know what that will be. It may feel like freedom.
True intimacy occurs when we directly experience reality for ourselves. ... Each one must find intimacy directly, not through our thinking mind, but from immediate direct experience prior to the mind’s mediation.” Katherine Thanas. “The Truth of This Life. Zen Teachings on Loving the World as It Is.” Shambhala, 2018.
“We are part of a mystery, a splendid mystery within which we must attempt to orient ourselves if we are to have a sense of our own nature.” Marilynne Robinson
“Why should things be easy to understand?” Thomas Pynchon
"We are stars wrapped in skin The light you are seeking has always been within."Rumi
North American surveys repeatedly show that most of us have mystical experiences, but due to family, societal & other pressures, we tend to downplay, discount or suppress these powerfully meaningful events, to conform to today's materialistic orthodoxy. Nevertheless, more & more of us are taking direct experiences seriously, investigating, integrating, & sharing them. David Bingham is an example of someone who underwent a major shift in consciousness, referred to as 'awakening' ('enlightenment') or directly experiencing one's 'True Nature' - who or what we actually are:
"The main thing that happened, and this is true for most people I’ve spoken to where there’s been a similar shift (in consciousness), is that seeking stops. Because up until that point, we’re convinced that we really are this human being bound in time & space, moving through time towards something that we want. That can be a spiritual motivation. It can be trying to find the perfect relationship; it can be trying to find somewhere to live that you like; trying to have children; trying to have a good job; trying to make money. All of those things are all forms of seeking. Spiritual seeking tends to come after those have been exhausted, but really, there’s no pattern to it. But in terms of the integration, what took place to me is that the seeking stopped, because having seen clearly who & what you are, there’s no possibility of any seeking. So then an enfoldment takes place, because you realize that actually you’re already where you need to be. And then there’s a kind of fine tuning where one’s own inner knowing, one’s own intuition becomes much more clear. ... much more reliable. So even though there’s a desire to kind of share this, because consciousness is at the helm, it can only be shared when consciousness gives you the nod. So there isn’t anything you can do about that. In terms of personal life, the integration that took place is that actually, because there is only present awareness, then everything takes place within present awareness, so the unfolding of life, all of the stuff that continues: it appears that time’s going by, it appears as though there’s an aging process, that things are changing on the surface of life. It’s all from the point of view of completely stable knowing of who & what you truly are.
There’s a line in the Bible where Jesus said, ‘The lilies of the field neither toil nor spin.’ And what happens in the development of consciousness is there’s a certain point that’s reached where seeking comes to an end, and then life begins to go by itself almost. So there’s a knowing of what to do in certain situations as they arise. Because there’s no motivation to do something in order to get somewhere, then everything is purely for what it is. So for instance, being here is totally about just being here with you. There isn’t anything else that actually matters. So it’s actually giving full attention to everything. So whether it’s in terms of a relationship, or whether it’s in terms of a perception, or an experience, everything is just seen purely & totally for what it is – and you’re just fully present with that. The state before that (ie our common, shared sense of reality), is that there’s something missing, that this is incomplete, this can be improved on, that actually I can do something to be in a better situation than this. So full attention is not something that’s available to you.
Interviewer: People are always trying to find happiness. The human mind is always trying to move towards what it perceives as pleasure, and away from what it perceives as pain. And you go through this process where you get money, and you get material things, and hopefully you have your health and a good relationship, beautiful children and whatever, but still this feeling ‘it’s not enough.’ So we all try in our own way. It may seem unintelligent in what we’re doing, but most of us are actually trying to move towards what would appear to be an intelligent place of happiness, but unfortunately happiness on a human level doesn’t really contain the magic missing ingredients, does it?
No, it doesn’t. And that’s part of the incentive in a way, or that’s part of the way consciousness unfolds. Because it’s that incompletion that allows the game to be played because as there really is only present awareness, then everything is already home, so there isn’t anything to find. But the way consciousness plays the game is that most of the stuff in the manifestation, is actually in contrast to its own essential nature. So it’s the idea of not being home. It’s the idea that there’s something missing. It’s the idea of incompletion. It’s the idea of impermanence. It’s the idea of imperfection. So all of the things that are actually the polar opposite of one’s true nature, are apparent in the manifestation. And in one respect, the reason it’s like that is to allow consciousness to know itself fully, because it’s by the contrast of the imperfection that perfection can be known." DavidBingham interview: http://conscious.tv/single.php?vid=4480053001
Using terminology with which you might be more familiar, we are BOTH frightened children desperately seeking safety & unconditional love (often "in all the wrong places"), AND wise elders who are the very source ofsafety & unconditional love. The Zen version of this is "not one, not two." The left-hemisphere of our brain is all about looking after the noisy frightened child & discounts & tries to drown out any other approach. Our right-hemisphere recognizes the important, restricted role of the left-hemisphereAND is aware of & values a FAR broader, FARwiser perspective.
“As a man is, so he sees.” William Blake
Luis Del Rio Camacho - cover photo, Orion Magazine, Autumn 2021
All of us have a fearful, hurt inner child part, as well as a wise grandparent or wise elder nature. Our inner child is easily triggered into 'fight, flight or freeze' survivalist reactions. The more our inner child is held in safety & unconditional love & heals - sometimes with the help of mental-health professionals - the more our wise elder self can continuously express itself & be an aware, nurturing, 'tend & befriend' presence. This gradual progressive shift from compulsive self-centeredness (noisy ego) towards appropriate care for self, others & the environment (quiet ego, allocentricity & ecocentricity), is a hallmark of psycho-social healing, normal human maturation, healthy aging, individuation, evolution of consciousness, arising of wisdom, etc. Self-reflection, meditation, contemplation are essential components of this deep human journey. Some of us require help from mental-health professionals simply to survive. Many can endure a life of 'ordinary unhappiness,' but with professional help, could actually thrive, flourish! Two powerful therapies well worth careful consideration are Internal Family Systems (IFS) and depth psychology (Jungian analysis). Those who have taken an 8-week Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course will have considerable insight into both of these therapies.
Internal Family Systems (IFS) is an evidence-based psychotherapy which helps us 'lean in' & get to know all of our sub-personalities ('parts'), see how these are all actually trying to help us (even parts we initially fear or dislike), and gradually guide all these parts to become peacefully allies. Then the 'Self'(with a capital S, to distinguish it from the common use of the word 'self'), can arise with 8 C qualities (Compassion, Curiosity, Calm, Clarity, Courage, Connectedness, Confidence, Creativity). "That ('Self') is what people meditate to get to, that in other traditions would be called Buddha nature, or Atman, or there are analogies in most every spiritual tradition, and I stumbled onto a way to access that 'person' pretty quickly, and not only have it become a kind of observing presence, but to become an active leader. IFS does change the way people understand themselves and each other in a very profound way. If everybody knew that there was this undamageable, intact, 8-C Self inside of themselves and everybody else; and that they were connected in the way we were talking about before; and that these protectors aren’t what they seem and they don’t have to fight inside with them (instead, love helps them transform) ... the more you can love your parts that drive you crazy ordinarily, the more you can love people who resemble those parts the same way; then it does change many, many aspects of human interacting, and will have a big impact on the culture."Dick Schwartz PhD, interview: https://resources.soundstrue.com/podcast/no-bad-parts/?utm_source=Customer%20Service&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=N210627-Schwartz%20%28TQHxAh%29&_kx=oubFt43NAjNBb0_NppHaGCF951bovtuCAx1o4i41Tys%3D.JMDgaq Richard C. Schwartz. "No Bad Parts: Healing Trauma and Restoring Wholeness with the Internal Family Systems Model." Sounds True, 2021.
Like MBSR & IFS, depth psychology (Jungian analysis) is non-pathologizing ie sees how our mind is actually trying to help us, no matter how confused, inappropriate or even frankly harmful it may appear. Also like MBSR & IFS, Jungian analysis seeks to go much deeper than mere temporary symptom relief, but go to the very root of our suffering, and finally untangle our earliest knots. Again, like MBSR & IFS, Jungian analysis aims to take us well beyond the abandoned fearful child ('noisy ego'), and help stabilize connection with our deepest, wisest nature, which is profoundly connected to all of life.
“The capacity of the psyche to heal itself, to express both the problem and the agenda for growth in symbolic forms, has been and remains a miraculous engagement to me. We do not invent or create these things; they are working within us to serve and support the work of nature. … the psyche always speaks to us. It speaks through the venues of body, of mind, of dreams, of intuitions, and it speaks symbolically. If we knew, as Jung once argued, that there is a two-million-year-old person inside of each of us – a presence bearing the wisdom of nature, the directives of the soul – would it not behoove us to pay attention to that personage, indeed, to cultivate a relationship to it?” James Hollis. “Living Between Worlds. Finding
Personal Resilience in Changing Times.” Sounds True, 2020. An exceptionally fine book (imho) - essential reading for those deeply interested in their patients' & their own OPTIMAL health.
"The small man builds cages for everyone he knows. While the sage keeps dropping keys all night long for the beautiful, rowdy prisoners." Hafiz
.jpeg){kind=spacer}
