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emc
2072 Posts |
 Posted - Jun 19 2013 : 07:18:30 AM
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"Realization is the movement from personality to being, the direct recognition of one’s ultimate nature, leading toward liberation from the conditioned self, while actualization refers to how we integrate that realization in all the situations of our life. When people have major spiritual openings, often during periods of intensive practice or retreat, they may imagine that everything has changed and that they will never be the same again. Indeed, spiritual work can open people up profoundly and help them live free of the compulsions of their conditioning for long stretches of time. But at some point after the retreat ends, when they encounter circumstances that trigger their emotional reactivity or their habitual tensions and defenses, they may find that their spiritual practice has hardly penetrated their conditioned personality, which remains mostly intact, generating the same tendencies it always has."
"When people use spiritual practice to try to compensate for feelings of alienation and low self-esteem, they corrupt the true nature of spiritual practice. Instead of loosening the manipulative ego that tries to control its experience, they strengthen it, and their spiritual practice remains unintegrated with the rest of their life." -John Welwood
I certainly recognized myself in this description. It's a long article, but well worth reading! 
http://www.tricycle.com/feature/psy...gy-awakening |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Jun 19 2013 : 12:08:24 PM
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Thanks emc : - ) It was a good article.
I personally used to hide in 'blissful feelings' from my emotional problems. The Presence Process (TPP) put all that stuff to rest: I dealt with my emotional maelstrom and processed it. I could live out the rest of my life now, forgetting all spiritual practices, and be a very happy, calm, peaceful guy who doesn't really have any tendency toward emotional or mental imbalances. Self-esteem and all that stuff are fine. Once, all that stuff was very NOT fine!
My intuition always told me to deal with the immanent (via TPP) rather before realizing the transcendent (via spiritual practices), and I spent years doing that.
However, the current work on the ego side is about the life I lead. Who do I choose as my friends? How do I choose to spend my free time (is it helpful and constructive and aligned with my best values)? What do I do for a living? What are my standards of ethics and integrity for treating others? What motivations is my body-mind acting from moment to moment? What do I say, do, think and feel in the array of social situations/relationships I engage in? Do I ever tell lies, even white ones, or I am always completely truthful?
I've found recently I just don't feel comfortable with even the tiniest lie or evasion anymore. I'm compelled to be truthful, but of course to do it very sensitively, I don't mean just blurting out whatever is in my head indiscriminately.
I'm feeling less connected to some of my old friends these days: mainly those who don't have good values of kindness and decency for how they treat others. Gradually I'm favoring more relationships with spiritual people (funnily enough, in the past, my only interactions with spiritual people has been via the AYP forums - with virtually no spiritual friends in real life). I have a sense of connection to all beings, and I want to be around people who have that too, who aren't living entirely in a cut-off ego world.
During my first awakening experience last year, where identification slipped away, I kind of thought I could just sit there resting in the experience indefinitely. I've realized though that being pro-active to create a life structure which is more supportive and aligned with my spiritual insights is pretty important. Those are my experiences with 'personal development' alongside spiritual awakening. |
Edited by - mr_anderson on Jun 19 2013 12:09:07 PM |
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parvati9
USA
587 Posts |
Posted - Jun 19 2013 : 12:44:24 PM
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quote:
"When people use spiritual practice to try to compensate for feelings of alienation and low self-esteem, they corrupt the true nature of spiritual practice. Instead of loosening the manipulative ego that tries to control its experience, they strengthen it, and their spiritual practice remains unintegrated with the rest of their life."
Hi emc
Good read, thanks. The above also stood out for me (bolded in particular). Some might call it 'spiritual pride'. Helps being aware but very hard to release in my experience.. We may end up getting attached to our spiritual practices and use them as a crutch. Or as an excuse to exempt us from the needed psychological work. Using them as a crutch and failing to move beyond them in a timely manner, so as to integrate the awareness into our everyday life - is something with which many of us struggle.
When we put a significant amount of energy into spiritual pursuits, it's often hard to keep common sense and humility in the picture... *As well as honoring and respecting the paths of others, no matter how much we may feel they are misguided or in error*... By glossing over and avoiding the necessary psychological work, the spiritual path can become a farce. That is perhaps a rather extreme viewpoint. But it may be in our best interest to deal with the possibility if it specifically applies to our own path. Welwood's article is in alignment with this perspective.
I'm on the last 40 pages of The Presence Process, having paused to reread several sections. My reason for being drawn to it is more or less the theme of Welwood's article. There's been some resistance on my part to Michael Brown's message and style of presentation however. Much valuable information in his book and the Welwood article. This is from my notes on the article:
Psychological inquiry can serve as a powerful ally to spiritual practice, dismantling the defensive personality structure in a more gradual and deliberate way, through psychological inquiry.
parvati |
Edited by - parvati9 on Jun 19 2013 1:24:06 PM |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Jun 19 2013 : 2:35:00 PM
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| Hi Parvati, are you going to do the 70 (approx) day course of the Presence Process? |
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parvati9
USA
587 Posts |
Posted - Jun 19 2013 : 4:45:50 PM
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Hi mr anderson
Thanks for asking and please excuse long reply. (Won't be derailing your thread emc so this is last post from me on TPP book)
Don't know about the course. I've only had experience with moving meditation due to being oversensitive and not really suited to the sitting kind. Never wanted to force myself until now. Moving meditation like mindfulness or Tai Chi works well for me b/c the energy doesn't build up to the point of overwhelm and overload. Yeah, I'm trying to do the sitting meditation and just can't do it for more than 4 minutes twice a day. However I am motivated so been experimenting. Michael would disapprove but his instructions will have to be tailored to fit my needs if I'm to do the course
While he strongly recommends against it, the only time it's possible to do the meditation for 15-20 minutes is before I get up and right after going to bed. So that's the best I can do at this point. Plus the conscious response w/breathing for a couple minutes several times throughout the day. Adding it all together, possibly 40 minutes or so daily...but not the way he says to do it ..Finding disagreement with him on some things but won't be throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Taking what is wanted and leaving the rest. If I do the course, it will have to be on my terms, not his. It's a very powerful book and the emotional work needs to be done.
Right after getting the book and spending only about an hour with it, I received a mind-blowing message from Presence. Over the years, this realization had come to me a few times but had always been suppressed, never wanting to really feel it or deal with the pain. My mother has pretty much always disliked me and when I was born she ignored me. After getting the book I literally saw my very young infant self in my playpen, feeling desperately sad. I wasn't able to sit up yet, and even had difficulty holding my head up. It was my grandmother who took care of me the first few months of my life b/c my mother couldn't bear to look at me. From the playpen I was watching my mother's movements and even at that tender young age I recognized my mother and wondered why she wasn't able to love me or at least hold me from time to time. Pretty powerful eh? However my father adored me so that almost made up for the lack of maternal affection.
parvati |
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mr_anderson
USA
734 Posts |
Posted - Jun 19 2013 : 5:40:47 PM
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| Wow, that's pretty powerful, and I'm sorry to hear of your experience. Almost all of us has our hearts broken in childhood to a more or lesser extent. I too had some very difficult experiences early on (which emerged and resolved during TPP) and had certainly deeply affected the way the adult I grew into related to the world and others. Well, if you can, it would be worthwhile to do the breathing exercises and so on for 70 days - it's that process that will result in the transformation you desire. With love and best wishes on your journey, josh. |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Jun 19 2013 : 11:01:32 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by emc
"Realization is the movement from personality to being, the direct recognition of one’s ultimate nature, leading toward liberation from the conditioned self, while actualization refers to how we integrate that realization in all the situations of our life. When people have major spiritual openings, often during periods of intensive practice or retreat, they may imagine that everything has changed and that they will never be the same again. Indeed, spiritual work can open people up profoundly and help them live free of the compulsions of their conditioning for long stretches of time. But at some point after the retreat ends, when they encounter circumstances that trigger their emotional reactivity or their habitual tensions and defenses, they may find that their spiritual practice has hardly penetrated their conditioned personality, which remains mostly intact, generating the same tendencies it always has."
"When people use spiritual practice to try to compensate for feelings of alienation and low self-esteem, they corrupt the true nature of spiritual practice. Instead of loosening the manipulative ego that tries to control its experience, they strengthen it, and their spiritual practice remains unintegrated with the rest of their life." -John Welwood
I can certainly relate to that observation--having had a strong spiritual awakening a few years ago and believing, momentarily, that all of life's problems would disappear. Wrong!!  No, they remained, and they have come back to greet me so that I may dutifully address them.
But I think it very, very important to mention that, if properly practiced, the technique of Deep Meditation is not one that easily allows for a person to hide from the aforementioned problems, like alienation or low self-esteem. I've had many a meditation where the easy favoring of the mantra led to an acute awareness of many subconscious thought-patterns and memories which had previously kept me from embodying the divine principles that we cultivate in samyama, and that arise naturally from abiding stillness.
So, I think that it largely depends on the specific technique as to whether or not a person can bypass core issues. Maybe other meditations (visualizations, passive "do nothing" meditations, etc.) make it easy for such hiding, but with the use of the mantra as an inner sound dependent on the ego voice to achieve depth, it is much harder to escape, since the ego voice itself is being utilized for transcendence and purification. I have experienced this big-time. Multiple layers of the mind are involuntarily brought to awareness simply by following the mantra. The more surrender, the more purification and surfacing of repressed matters.
Anyway, with the sound of the mantra, where does the ego voice end and the divine voice begin? I've been very shallow, and very deep, and still there is some element of connectedness between all levels of experience. It's just layers and degrees of the God mind crystallizing into individuality: a hologram projected from unity.
Real non-duality embraces duality. Real BEING embraces personality.  |
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emc
2072 Posts |
Posted - Jun 20 2013 : 08:05:58 AM
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Mr anderson, thanks a lot. I love your posts! They help me a lot!
Parvati, thanks for your sharing! I can relate a lot to what you write! I think it's lovely that you talk about the Presence process. I'm getting inspired.
Bodhi tree, I don't know... I managed to bypass pretty good on the I AM mantra... it's the only meditation I've done seriously for a longer time, and it brought me to depths and hights of great magnitude. But then, of course, I had the energy problems, so I had to lessen the use of the mantra, and finally cease all together. Perhaps it was life's way to say "no, you're not ready yet - go back to therapy!"  A self-regulating system!
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Edited by - emc on Jun 20 2013 08:11:27 AM |
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Bodhi Tree
2972 Posts |
Posted - Jun 20 2013 : 2:44:03 PM
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It's funny, I've been thinking about how Deep Meditation has been like self-therapy for me. I suppose it is different for everyone, but it still seems inevitable and implicit in the gentle diving of the technique that subconscious layers will be mindfully incorporated into present awareness. The way I see it is that God is my therapist, and that by following the mantra, I am allowing Him to help navigate the terrain that needs to be passed through. I went to individual therapy for a little while, and I found that although my therapist was also very gentle and allowing, I was inevitably getting tangled up in his karma by default of his guidance.
But, of course, it's whatever works, so I'm happy for you if therapy is making the journey one you enjoy. Love. Unity. Wisdom. |
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