Adyashanti is currently one of the most revered of the inte rnet's neo-advaitist’s messengers. I enjoy reading and listening to his philosophical discussions. However, over time I’ve come to recognize that he is as deluded as any other postmodern Non-Dual/Zen "teacher" and this delusional mindset is contagious, since the message is passed from one idolized messenger to another.

The quotes used here can be found at Adyashanti.org, “The Quest”

The “quest for the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence” is not found in solitary excursions through the mind, since this only results in egoic conceptual “fantasies." It is encountered in the depth of relationship and that is "the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence" and the reason you're 'here.'

Truth is not available to separate individuals outside relationship, since this makes it 'proprietary truth,' which must belong to an 'individual' (just not you). The truth, simultaneously experienced by two or more who have encountered it together, is not relative to any individual ego-self. However, truth encountered together can be negated as truth, especially for those who believe 'truth' belongs only to the individuals we have designated as specialized "Wisdom Masters."

Yes, however, this 'wise man' (with the Hindu name) fails to address the fact that all of these “identities” are manufactured in relation to engagement with the identity of others. The ‘self’ was not constructed in isolation, but immersed in relationship with a 'world' of other identities. Even the illusion is communal and was constructed in collaborative engagement. Unfortunately, this may make it “real,” just not true and it is truth that we must seek together.

Therefore, if the “real” was constructed in cooperative engagement, the truth will be discovered in the same way and this lends credence to the fact that we are powerful beyond belief (since it is belief which limits us). The illusion is that by seeking the truth as an individual, more illusion is what you will find. An individual must always discover illusion, because an “individual” is a concept that 'we' made "real." If your "quiet moments" were truly "honest," then a desire to engage the 'others' of your world will be the result, in the realization that this is the only way to encounter truth.

Therefore, from this "unsactisfactoriness of separation," seek out the ground of truth through relationship (why choose any other 'individual' path?). From a depth of engagement with the illusion, together we overcome it in realizing we united to make it “real.” Now we simply unite to make it true.

It’s not the space between thoughts that need be discovered, but the space between minds that need be converged because, from that space, ”individuals” emerged and, in that alone, illusion was made “real” and egoic compromises, or distinctions, were manufactured to define illusion as “real.” Unfortunately, we have yet to realize the true, simply because we seek to find it as 'individuals.'

Although the revelation (or revealing) is through another, the ego will insist that you engage the "authentic quest for enlightenment” alone. This is because individual ego-self relies distinctly on distrust and, thus, alienation, from others in order to advance itself through delusional inequality.

This is why so many fail to realize truth undiluted by egoic constructions simply because they seek to attain it as an individual, while other minds remain in absentia of that truth. Unfortunately, “master teachers,” such as Adyashanti, perpetuate that same delusion and, therefore, become victims themselves, as the past is repeated, ad nauseam, from individual to individual.

The one illusion you must cease to cherish is that you, alone are "truth-seeker" and can access truth, because that “game” is finite. Discard only this illusion and “what’s left is the truth.” We will certainly “stumble on it” together, but only in realizing it cannot be discovered alone. Until we all join in the infinite game, individuals will continue to access finite outcomes and call these individual rewards "enlightenment," "awakening," "revelation," etc, etc, etc.

Which is exactly what we do, as the ‘ego-self’ travels in circles by following itself. All the self need do is realize that even its illusions are not manufactured in solitude. This halts the ego-self in its tracks, as it must now join with another to finally understand itself. It is this collaborative understanding that ceases to cherish illusions and discovers truth together as one.

Exactly. But that “energy” remains contained and limited because “you” seek to deconstruct “you.” Go ahead and deconstruct "me," as "I" simultaneously deconstruct “you,” and from that ground of relating the Truth-of-Being (hyphenated to denote unity) will be discovered together, because no one individual could possibly realize the absolute and unconditional, in which making such a discovery is conditioned solely on an ego-self. The idea that one must first become "enlightened," or experience the non-dual, and only then teach others, is absurd and makes suffering true for all but the 'enlightened masters' like Adyashanti.

There is nothing threatening about solitary seeking and the ego relishes the chance to be the ‘one’ to spend years "discovering truth" and all the paradigms of the ‘dream-world’ piggy-back off this basic delusion. But truth discovered by an individual can only be relative to that individual and therefore, NOT truth at all.

The most "threatening" ego endeavor is to discover truth through, and with, another, because in that discovery love is experienced unconditioned by egoic constructs. Yet, in that discovery “you” cease to be experienced as “you” now know your ‘self’ and “we” takes on a new perspective never before encountered.

There is nothing radical to Adyashanti’s teachings, only the same conventional wisdom pointing to the way that “you” can find truth. Unfortunately, what “you” find is what Adyashanti has found, only more illusion. Sadly, this distorted view continues to be the path of the neo-Zen, non-dualers and this individual “hero’s journey” will only continue to demand seeking truth by inadvertently excluding it.

However, the truth available in the depth of relationship was always the archetypal Christ/Buddha message until ego-self got a hold of it and made that message it’s own. Now we have lost the message, but have gained many messengers still cherishing illusions.

Recently I came across an interesting stock market report by CNN ("the most trusted name in news"), entitled "Make Fear and Greed Work for You."

"Those are the emotions that rule the markets, and changes in stock prices simply reflect the swing of the pendulum between the two extremes."

Actually, those are the emotions that rule the world, as long as the world embraces acquisition and loss as defining it. Therefore, those who experience the 'world' will be taught to define themselves by those standards. My gain is your loss and, in a world of limits, there must always be winners and losers.

Capitalist markets and monetary-value systems are egoic inventions manufactured to define the ego-self through fear and greed or loss and acquisition. Both states of mind accentuate "you" as existing and without them, the ‘self' could not exist and you could not know your ‘self' as "you" now do.

Many wish to extricate themselves from this dynamic by refusing to play. But who has not experienced fear or greed and conducted their life accordingly? In fact, your daily functioning is solely based on acquisition and defending against loss. These are the games of the ego and we generally refer to our participation as "life."

Unfortunately, most spiritual ideologies are unsuccessful in defining the self through "love," because they, too, embrace the egoic desire for acquisition. Seeking to acquire a "spiritual goal" (awakening, enlightenment, non-duality) that perpetuates disengagement from the world is a problem, because it has always been true that if you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem.

Postmodern ego exists, or self-actualizes, through what it acquires. Loss is equivalent to psychological death (recall the actual suicides in the market collapse of last year). We grieve loss, because it is a psychological dying of the self, bit by bit. It's not the death of a loved one the ego grieves, but the loss of the love object to the ‘self.'

Ego's do not like to lose and, because of loss, may experience a living-death. Deprivation or loss defines the self as rigidly as does acquisition or 'getting.'

Fear and greed don't just the fuel capitalist markets, but are components of the ego-self or that package of beliefs you define as "you." Greed demands competitive acquisition and fear demands defending, or protecting, what you have acquired. Whether cooking the books to hide huge bank losses or "keep your dog off my property!" You will do what it takes to defend what you have acquired simply because you believe it defines you.

‘Life' is defined as protecting what you have acquired believing it defines "you" and the U.S. constitution was based more on protecting property rights, than in upholding "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." Property rights, or monetary value, is the measure through which your "happiness" is determined. Without those standards defining your ‘self,' you would become desperate because the beliefs that defined you would now negate you as less than 'alive.'

As a collective consciousness, we are beginning to experience an Age of Desperation (and it may not be "quiet").

When the foundation of your self-defining belief-system is suddenly pulled out from under you, you will experience a free-fall into doubt and fear. This is why your defining foundation must not be built on the shifting sands of a self-definition extracted from what the world teaches, because the world teaches greed and fear.

Become an infinite player in the games the ego devises. With no expectation of outcome, you will experience no loss. Expect rewards and you will experience deprivation and define your 'self' through absence as opposed to presence, lack as opposed to fulfillment and bondage as opposed to freedom. When you have nothing to gain, because you have nothing to lose, fear and greed can no longer limit "you."

The dream of reality is shared. No one dreams alone.

Minds are not part of the dream, but it's there that we will meet when we awake together.

You support me in my illusions, as I support you in yours. Is death a part of your dream? Together we keep the dream alive.

Although the forms we experience are exclusive to each, it is the underlying currents the forms ride upon that we all share.

In my dream a loved one dies, while in yours, sickness impoverishes a body. Yet suffering attends both. You will support the ‘reality’ of my suffering, because I support yours. Dreams seem different, yet, they have always been the same. They are interdependent, contrasting illusions of sickness and health, war and peace, love and hate.

Six billion dreamers support each others dream by dreaming up a 'world' all their own.

You are the dreamer of your dream, as I am center of mine. We seem to be apart in the dream, but are co-conspirators in cause and effect. An illusion of wealth contrasts with poverty, while our fears and joys seem to compete in our collaborative collusion. I support your illusions, as you support mine and together we make it “real.” Always together as one (dreaming we are apart).

The moment either of us chooses to end the dream, all dreams must die. Six billion minds, each cause and effect. There is no First Cause to illusion. I have allowed your illusion as, simultaneously, you allow mine.

Your satisfaction must contrast with my disappointment for both to be "real." My illusion of happiness is distinguished in opposition to your illusion of misery. You direct my performances, as I direct yours. My effects make you cause and your cause makes you an effect of me.

You cause the dream in which I control your controlling my control of you.

I can never fulfill your purpose for me. Nor will you fulfill the purposes I apply to you and in that, the dream persists. Sometimes you dream that I make you angry or sad or even happy, but if you are cause, then I can only be mere effect. We can never truly meet in the dream and our bodies insure against that ever happening.

But I must have your support, for my dream to continue and you require my services as well. If one refuses to play, then the game ends for both. Yet, as long as you are part of my dream, I will be with you in yours. What we "see," is what we agree to see and and, therefore, what we see is proof of our agreement.

Do you see death? So do I. Yet, if one of us breaks that contract, death can no longer be visible.

We are both cause and effect, for we are one. I cause my dream, while you are merely an effect of me. Yet, as an effect of my dream, you are cause to your own, while I am nothing but an effect of you. We all collaborate together in cause and effect of our mutual interlocking dreams of “reality.”

As long as we both share in dreaming of death and suffering, it must be "real" and it is this shared part of the dream that makes dreaming seem separate. We must agree we are separate in order to dream of meeting as bodies. You must share in my illusion of 'self' for me to share in yours. The moment you choose to awaken from your dream, my dreaming must end as well, for without you as an effect, I can no longer be cause.

One dreamer cannot be both cause and effect, because all dreams are.

To wake me is to awaken yourself, as you can only wake with my help. No one wakes alone, because no one dreams alone. We will eventually forget our dreams, but not each other. Never each other, because to forget is to remember. That can never change, simply because it's not a dream.


Sweet dreams are made of these
Who am I to disagree?
Travel the world and the seven seas
Everybody's looking for something
Some of them want to use you
Some of the them wanna get used by you
Some of them wanna abuse you
Some of them wanna be abused
(Annie Lennox)

Love is a feedback loop that when extended, only comes back around to the mind extending, even when receipt of that extension is denied by the love object you are extending to.

This loop originates with extension TO another, but is not conditioned on extension FROM another.

To know love you must extend love, yet it makes no difference if love is extended back from another. In this way, one can BE love and this BEING is not conditioned on anything other than that BEING.

Nevertheless, according to your ego (the conditioned and socially trained part of your mind), for love to be experienced, all extension, or giving, must be conditioned on ‘getting’ in return. Therefore, your extension TO another is specifically conditioned on their extension TO you. If a return is not forthcoming, based on your extension, your egoic mind will purposely obstruct or even fully terminate the loop that originates from your mind.

Love requires extension to another in order to be experienced, but it is not contingent on another returning it. Mother Teresa was steeped in love for the sick and suffering in her care. Yet, the extent of their sickness may have made it impossible for a return extension. Nevertheless, her love to them magnified love within her experience of self and the loop was completed, and maintained, like an unbroken electrical circuit.

Love magnifies YOU and this magnification is contingent on nothing but extension. This is because the only way to experience love is to extend it.

Of course, you need not be a Mother Teresa, sacrificing your life for the sick, to experience such magnification within your own experience of “self.’ However, there must be another for which to extend. Those we extend to are often family or loved ones of our choosing. Unfortunately, the ego chooses primarily for what it can ‘get’ and less by what it can give. This impedes the feedback loop that is not contingent on receiving anything at all.

A feedback loop in the extension of love can have no interference for the impulses you send out to return to you in a magnified form. Love conditioned as contingent on return impulses from another only impedes what you extend from returning to you. Love is a state of Being experienced by mind and, although physical manifestations are available for observation, unconditioned love is an enlightened state of mind available to all minds, but only through extension.

Love is the nature of Being and extension is our natural predisposition. Demanding extension be contingent on return will cause the loop to eventually contract in upon itself. Many live their entire lives in the experience of a contracted and obstructed feedback loop and never experience the love that serves to magnify life itself.

The difference between this feedback loop and other forms of feedback is that your experience of love is contingent on the impulse you send out being returned in a magnified form, but that magnification requires nothing from anyone else and your only focus is extension. Therefore, you cannot obstruct this extension of mind through imposing conditions on that extension.

This requires a secure sense of ‘self’ in which your security is not contingent on a return of extended love. In this sense, your giving love to another is free and clear of the egoic imposition of any factors whatsoever. Love is not a dependent state and must be free of conditional dependencies that your ego defines.

Surprisingly, (and many have experienced this), what actually takes place through this feedback loop is that, because there is no dependency on a return extension, that return naturally occurs.

When the loved one you extend to experiences that you have no demand for the extension to be returned, the natural predisposition is to extend as well. To experience diminished egoic involvement in extending love is to be inspired through it, and touched by it, instilling a desire to replicate the experience for oneself.

If you extend to me and all my hatred of you does little to impede or terminate that extension, I can only marvel and seek to emulate the experience I reckon you must have encountered. This is because deep down I know this experience and have wanted, longed for it, all my life. We all long for the freedom of an extension of love that makes no demands. This is bound up in our Being and is a natural condition of Being, in fact, it is the only condition of your Being.

In a spiritual sense, there is only one way to experience your Being, free and unfettered from egoic attachment, and that is through the extension of your Being (defined as love) to another, with no condition on whether this is returned or not.

This is the nature of your existence. But a more important point relates to the magnification of the experience of love. This magnification within the feedback loop is infinite. Therefore, increase will continue to occur as much and as far as the mind will allow, based on increasingly diminished conditions. Thus, if another agrees to join the loop you have extended, this serves as an addition to the wholeness you magnify through your own mindful extension and magnifies them in their mind as extension is mutually engaged together.

Love is always an increase to 'self' regardless of who does or does not participate. Yet, make no mistake, participation is naturally compelled in the minds of those so touched by the experience you model through your own secure feedback loop. Take away egoic impositions and the circuit cannot be broken.

See for yourself.

Man, did I ever have shitty mood this morning. Funny how everything seems to deteriorate when your in a shitty mood. In fact, maybe our experience of 'world' is more a product of mood than any other aspect of self

We often like to speak of our experience of self and world by describing thoughts and feelings. But what about mood?

Often mood comes upon us for no apparent reason and we can't really place exactly what thoughts or feelings preceded our mood. Mood permeates our being to the core and it's the filter through which the world is, seemingly, lit up with light or veiled in darkness.

Yet, even though we often cannot identify the origin of mood, if it's negative we will desperately seek an exit strategy. We desire mood be positive at all times and those who fail to exhibit positive consistency of mood we label as "moody." We're really NOT seeking happiness, but a consistent positive mood.

Mood is ubiquitous and omnipresent. Mood gives meaning to every experience and IS experience. The whole shebang!

Psychology tends to consider moods as crucial to functioning. This is why the exalted "Psychiatric bible" (Diagnostic and Statistical manual of mental disorders or DSM-IV) tends to classify impaired functioning under two chief headings: disorders of mood or disorders of personality. Yet I don't want to discuss "mood" from a purely psychological perspective, but rather from an experiential or existential, lived-in experience.

Regardless of psychology's assessment, we tend to pay less attention to mood, than we do to specific thoughts or emotions. However, it seems we are more acutely aware of our mood when it is negative and this may relate to Freud's pleasure principle, in which we feel naturally inclined to move away from pain or discomfort and move toward pleasure or comfort.

This is because mood is all-encompassing and deeply pervasive to our entire Being. Mood is "who" we are.

Moods can last for hours and even days and often we cannot specifically pinpoint what particular emotion, behavior, thought, physical condition or external situation has resulted in our mood. Once we find ourselves sunk into a specific negative mood, we may find it excruciatingly difficult to exit and thus, feel existentially ‘trapped' in our mood. We tend to rate our moods along a positive/negative spectrum and mood can often change instantaneously with little notice. We often tend to label moods as up or down, pessimistic or optimistic, with many derivatives in between.

The most important aspect of moods is that they tend to shape our world. In fact, the famous (and somewhat infamous) western philosopher, Martin Heidegger, has posited the theory that moods have the distinct capacity to manufacture or construct our 'world' experience.

Mood IS the world.

We don't necessarily experience a world that then results in a mood, in accordance with what we experience, but instead press our mood upon the world and that is the world we experience. The important point is that mood and world interact as ONE.

Psychology holds that mood is the combination of interior states based primarily on cognitive interpretations of an external ‘world.' Yet, Heidegger's philosophical interpretation of mood (or "affectedness" as he refers to it) is different from most definitions of mood since it tends to expose, or "disclose," the world to us based on our mood and has little to do with what we believe we experience as a result of participating in the world.

Mood is an 'attunement' to the whole of humanity. However, Heidegger does not make the usual reference to any conventional term like mankind or humanity. Instead, he refers to humanity as "Dasein," which is the German word for Being-in-the world, hyphenated to demonstrate unity.

World and mankind are one 'unit' or composite, which can never be divided or split. However, in our moods we obsess on parts of the world as the origin of our mood and thus fail to realize it is our mood that gives splits off our experience of a world. Therefore, the world might be consistent, yet, we have no way of knowing since it is our moods that change and the world changes accordingly.

Mood gives us our ‘experience' of time, outside chronological or intellectual time.

Nevertheless, I feel that Heidegger's most important contribution is related to the terms authenticity and inauthenticity.

"The authenticity or inauthenticity of a mood is determined by whether it discloses the truth of Dasein [Being-in-the-world] or conceals this truth".(Quentin Smith, Heidegger's Theory of Moods, Michigan Univ., Phil Dept.).

For Heidegger, "Dasein," or Being-in-the world, is to be understood as a wholeness or unified state with no partitioning. Thus, mood's that reveal that wholeness as Truth are authentic, while moods that conceal this truth from us he considers inauthentic. Our moods tend to "disclose" and reveal truth. Truth cannot be found in the world, yet the world is not to be separated from truth as we and the world are of a unified status. Our moods either inform of this unity or depart entirely from it and we experience this in relation to our mood.

Our mood can have us magically engaged in our "being-in-the-world" or withdrawn and isolated from this truth.

For Heidegger the chief mood of existence is anxiety. Anxiety can be authentic or inauthentic. Inauthentic anxiety attaches to the activities of the world, the hustle and bustle of trying to make a living and seeking happy diversions from the doldrums of living. This anxiety conceals being-in-the-world or our truth. Authentic anxiety is related to death and not-Being, and is a deeper closing in on our very existence. It is what drives us to seek solace in religion and spiritual practices (this is my interpretation and not necessarily Heidegger's)

Yet, although he is considered the "philosopher of anxiety" he also deals with joy. However, this is directly related to authentic anxiety, "Although with the sober anxiety, which brings one before one's individual ability-to-be, there goes an unshakable joy in this possibility" (Being and Time, p 310). To correspond with one's Being-in-the-world, or the truth of this unified wholeness; to have this brought to mind completely unconcealed and disclosed to us, is a mood of magnified joy.

I believe this often occurs with those diagnosed terminally ill. They feel compelled to engage with world and make it "disclose" its truth. This is often a very liberating experience.

This does not necessarily require any belief in an external "source," such as god or pure awareness. However, frequently spiritual paths facilitate this conceptualization as a way toward the self's experience of being-in-the-world as a 'wholeness.'

Nevertheless, we cannot deny that many have experienced this joy of unified wholeness without any conceptualized idea of god, universal consciousness, nirvana, enlightenment, awakening etc, etc, whatsoever. Although, because the experience is so unusual, the self seeks out interpretations for which to make sense of it. In any event, this blissful state is available to anyone at anytime and does not require any specified practices or ideologies for through which to experience. However, it does demand a deep engagement with your 'experience' of the world no matter how painful that experience may become.

Thanks,
mikeS

 

ego: Oh good grief! Now you've gone and done it.

Mike: Done what!

ego: I told you not to start that "pod" thing. Why won't you listen to me! Don't we have enough problems in our current relationships? I don't get it, aren't you happy with our spiritual path, the meditating, the practices and techniques, the reading books and listening to tapes? Why do you have to go and create more problems in our life?

Mike: Uh...well, I'm not so sure I need to define conflicts in my life as "problems" and besides, I thought we agreed that ‘engagement' was important to my spiritual path?

ego: Yes! Of course engagement is important. But on our terms!
Don't you understand, you'll have little, if any, control of the direction things may take in this "pod" you started. If you start "engaging" all over creation you will no doubt expose all your idiosyncrasies, defects of character, shadow zones, and who knows what else. Do we really need to air out all our dirty laundry, Mike? Huh!

Mike: Seems to me it's more about your "terms" and, of course, you only want to see what you can get out of the deal. Maybe by airing your dirty laundry I can finally clean up your messes. You haven't become very handy in cleaning things up, but you sure can make the messes. Maybe I need to get a little help from others and stop completely relying on you.

ego: Alright, fine! But don't come crying to me when you get your head handed to you because you said something stupid and you get clobbered with it. If your gonna do this then I can't protect you anymore from the consequences.

Mike: Really!? Oh happy days! Are you saying I'm finally free of you!

ego: uh... well...wait a minute, let's not be too hasty now, Mike, I mean... of course I'll help you sometimes...just maybe not as much.
I mean... who knows maybe one day you'll become a famous "pod master" or maybe "Master of all Pods" or something like that. Wow! Think of that! And when that happens you're gonna need me, Mike, make no mistake. Yep, I'd better hang around then, just in case.

Mike: Oh good grief...(sigh)

Serious Cat don't like no funny business...

ego: Uh...Mike, what are you laughing at?

Mike: Haha! What I just wrote! Teehee. LOL!

ego: Mike, don't you think you should be taking our spirituality a little more seriously?

Mike: Huh? Why? And what do you mean "our" spirituality?

ego: Mike, you know we're in this together and nobody's gonna take what you write seriously if you act as if this is all a big joke. Besides, "enlightenment" is serious business!

Mike: Well, maybe it is a "big joke." In fact, maybe God's laughing his ass off with all our serious spiritual-religious bullshit!

ego: Mike! We cannot have this! Spirituality is serious business and you gotta stop fooling around. There's important work to be done!

Mike: Says who? You! You take everything so damn serious, no wonder most days I'm a mental case!

ego: I am truly shocked by your attitude! The world's ancient spiritual paths and religions are based on centuries of serious teachings, taught by serious "masters." You can't just disrespect the teachings with your lame comedy bits.

Mike: I thought we were trying to break from the past.

ego: Uh...well, yes... we are, but keep in mind that I am a product of your past. Therefore, for you to exist you must accept the past in me.

Mike: Well, maybe by no longer taking spirituality so serious, I no longer have to take you serious and life might become a bit more enjoyable around here.

ego: Enjoyable! Mike, the spiritual path requires suffering and sacrifice and you know that, since we've spent years learning it. How could you forget? Now mike...you need to keep in mind that I assisted you in acquiring all the important stuff you now know. You need to take this seriously, dammit!

Mike: Hmmm...maybe what you fear is that, if spirituality becomes a big joke to me, you'll also become a big joke, since you seem to thrive on my taking everything seriously, especially the so-called "important stuff."

ego: Mike! Stop this now! You need to get with the program like everybody else and stop this foolishness.

Mike: See ya...

ego: Mike... wait... Mike! Don't do this...........Mike?

 In reading Robert Master's "Meeting the Dragon: Ending Our Suffering by Entering Our Pain," pain and suffering is the dragon and we must face it.

I've read several of his essays and found them quite good. Unfortunately, I found nothing new and revelatory in this book. But then again, I'm somewhat biased, since I'm always looking for something new, but rarely find it.

He tells us that pain and suffering are different experiences. "pain is unpleasant sensation. Suffering, on the other hand is something we are doing with our pain."(page 7) "The more intimate we are with our pain, the less we suffer."(pg 9). 

Makes sense to me.

But why do we suffer?

Because pain is personally owned and not shared. Pain is solely yours and in that aloneness suffering is acute. Pain is an individual experience that intensifies your separation from others and that is the cause of suffering, not your pain. Pain intensifies your separation because no one feels your pain like you and from that individual perspective you are truly alone in the world and suffering will attend to that experience.

Note that we share love and joy, but tend to believe pain and suffering must be experienced alone.

Why is that?

Masters wants you to become intimate with your pain and the chapter names reveal that process, "Naming our Pain," Turning Toward Our Pain," Entering Our Pain" and "Emerging from Our Pain."

Now your pain is no longer stranger to you, even though the world may still be.

He tends to focus exclusively on emotional pain, which is interpreted as caused by another. But then, why not seek intimacy with another, if another is perceived as cause. If intimacy was present would suffering exist in the first place?

Masters wants you to objectify your pain by analyzing the data and "name you pain". He does want you to engage with others who will not "let you off the hook." Yet, other than that, others have no real tangible part in his theory.

But how can that be when others are the hook?

Why not share you pain because, like compassion we all experience it. Yet, in the feeling of absolute solitude that suffering brings, we withhold from others and suffer accordingly. All pain and suffering is an individual affair that needs be shared, just like any other positive experience.

My feeling is that Masters techniques of facing your pain merely reinforces you as apart from your experience of ‘others' and the ‘world.' But isn't this the cause of suffering and is there really such a 'separation'? Your pain is the product of engagement, just as your love is and therefore, the solution is found at the source because detachment from the source means love is denied and suffering substituted

Master's has us dancing with our pain, rather than dancing with the source to cure it. However, it does seem that all we ever do is dance with pain and that's called suffering. But it is failing to dance intimately with the others that is the source of suffering.

Suffering is really nothing more than disconnection and the more you engage with it, the more is persists. We disconnect and thus inflict suffering upon each other and Masters seems to miss this crucial equation in his desire for you to become "intimate with your pain." But why not engage intimately with its cause. The very techniques he advocates, seem to avoid cause, by demanding your pain be faced alone. But facing life alone without the depth of engagement that you're here for, is what you suffer from. No?

He writes:

"Evolving from me centered to we centered is not just a progression in intimate relationship, but in every relationship that matters, including with our pain. (and being centeredness does not do away with me-centeredness and we-centeredness, but instead simultaneously transcends and includes them)." (pg 25 pdf)

There is that confounded "transcend and include" concept of integral theory. However, I wonder if that's the experience or merely another theoretical generalization that has no bearing on the intensity of our actual experience.

Nevertheless, Chapter 6 then informs, "to emerge from our pain we have to enter it, to do otherwise is to suffer. And emerging from our pain, we will, sooner or later have to reenter it."

But make no mistake, for Masters, this is an individual endeavor. Of course, he attempts to define pain objectively so we can get a better handle on naming and entering it and these descriptions are abstractly poetic, (with a few I had never heard before). But do describing what you feel, aid in alleviating what you feel?

Still, you are alone in your pain and that's why you suffer. He seems to miss that shame, fear, jealousy, embarrassment, anger, sadness, all these emotions he identifies, are experienced in direct correlation with OTHERS.

I think the problem has been this concept of "within." Within is not about being with your ‘self' in some type of analytical absorption or dwelling in the mind and all its contexts and contents.

How was the conditioned mind shaped and formed?

In connection with an ‘outside' world that is noexistent without 'others.' Yet, we often do this in opposition, rather than in intimate engagement with, an ‘external' world. Seeking within does not exclude an outside, but converges the two in a synthesis.

For masters it seems the outside world is composed of "distractions" that you must then distract yourself from in order to enter your pain and finally slay the dragon.

Much of this reminds me of Bradshaw's "wounded child" work in his "Healing the Shame that Binds You." Although Masters take us much deeper into the emotions, with chapters on "Pain's Directionality." "Pain's Texture," "Pain's Temperature," Pain's Color," Pain's Density and Intensity" and finally "Pain's Shape." Quite an unusual and valuable analysis of pain.

Yet, this is 'science' and science has yet to demonstrate value in alleviating ‘man's inhumanity to man.'

Chapter 15 deals with "undressing the inner critic." But fails to address the fact that this critic was formed in relation to others, and the world, and makes us pull away from that correlation. Here is an interesting quote:

"She may have a flatter-than-flat belly, and still stuck in it, as if leaning toward invisibility-she not only aches to be seen as an immaculate beauty incarnate, but also aches to disappear, knowing that she can not ever really measure up. She is starving, eaten alive by her shame. See me, she silently implores, but also don't see me.

She is dying to be loved. Perfectionism is eating her up, and doesn't give a damn about her screams and suicidal urges. She is almost always in perfectionism's cold mirror, having not yet learned to hold up a mirror to her perfectionism itself. But once she does she is on her way out of hell." (pg 72)

I tend to agree with Jean Paul Sartre in that "hell is other people." All these painful impressions or emotions are in direct relation to other people, because other people are our world. Your experience of the world is barren without intimately sharing that world. But Master's prefers the inner skills of the ancient practices of secluded self introspection toward enlightened insight. Face your fears and alleviate your symptoms is fine. But the cure is in, with and through, others.

Masters wants us to face our fears, but his theory fails to incorporate the relationships that create our fears. The cure is in intimacy with others which naturally creates intimacy with yourself. The fears that define you, based on others, do not seem to be involved in his theory. Again we have appeasement of the inner critic without fully examining where those critical views coame from. Go there and become intimate with that instead.

I agree with Master's chief theoretical premise that "to emerge from pain we have to enter it." Yet, pain and suffering assert a separate individuality from the world and thus intensifies our lonely and separate existing. To enter and emerge from pain you need to face it with others because, make no mistake you have defined it through others.

Master's also adds that "the more intimate we are with our pain, the less we suffer." I would only reframe that to read -  the more intimate we are with others, the less we suffer.

However, I understand how individual ego's will resist alleviation of suffering through intimacy with others. But I think they cannot deny that this is why they suffer.

But I'm just saying...

Thanks,
mikeS

Well, after much deep consideration, I have taken the advice of a few and started a pod.

Fully Engaged in the Games of Life


I'm only now considering structural ideas in terms of focus or theme. However, the idea of "awakening" through others as opposed to 'self,' tends to be a priority focus for me as of the last few years. This is also in relation to my own experiences, as well as my current spiritual 'path.'

Nevertheless, we will be deeply engaged in all renditions of  reality, self and others.

Anyway, hope folks will find the discussions interesting and feel moved to participate. I especially wish to invite those whom I've sparred with in previous discussions in other pods. I certainly hold no grudges and you can be certain that if we did engage in a deep and heated discussion, my interest was there and so was my respect for the engagement and all participants (regardless of my posting demeanor).

Much Thanks,
mikeS

Frequently, within the pods, intense and somewhat heated exchanges occur between members. Usually, this is handled with civility, however, often it tends to create bad feelings amongst certain members and, although, this may rise up occasionally, most tend to seek out greater civility and make apologies as necessary.

Guess what? This is life, boys and girls! These discussions are microcosmic representations of life itself, merely abridged and abbreviated within the threads.

So many frightened Gaian's around here. Always sensitive to the negativity of darkness.

Yet, lo and behold, we have the charge of the Light Brigade! Because they refused to engage in the dark depths of discussion, and often are disenaged from most conflicts of life, the lighworkers come to our "emotional rescue." They seek to spread peace and light in the hopes of redirecting hostilities, but merely make the participants feel even more guilty for their conflictual engagement. Who could not feel guilty when the interaction they recently engaged in was anything but "peace and light"?

Thank god for the lightworkers and their clichés of peace and godliness; with their comfortable pithy quotes from the master teachers of light.

Sometimes I want to ask, are you real? But that would be too controversial and so, It would go unanswered.

I sense their presence always, out there in the margins, rarely enaging except to post a quote from the venerable in the hopes of saving the thread from death by negativity. Disagree with their means and you instantly indict yourself as in league with the postivity sucking devil of darkness.

Conflict is anathema to the lighworkers who define life as merely the spreading of positive "vibrations" and all the time we must remain positive. Philosophical negativity is shunned because, as their creed demands, negativity in all its forms can never have any value and can only lead to more negativity. Negative interactions can have no cathartic effect in aiding individuals in seeing more clearly the views they hold. Life is chock full of conflict and most is of our own doing, individually and collectively. Yet, we tend to grow through spasms of pain and suffering. We watch others struggle to make sense of anger and depression and we identify with them, because their struggle is ours.

Most of us that is, but not the lightworkers. They seem unusually immune to the conflicts the rest of us poor folk plod through. But if only we would just seek the light, all our troubles would be gone, "come into the light, Caroleanne, come into the light!"

But we are!

For the lightworkers, dirty laundry stinks and so we must quickly wash away our issues and problems with lots of soap and water. Remember when you mother washed out your fowl mouth with soap? You continued to use the ‘F' word even more ferociously! ( well, maybe that was just me)

No, dear friends, we must always shed our light upon the world as if darkness had no value. Ahh... but without darkness to define your seeking the light, how would you define your "self"?

Forget the deep-seated ancient issues and the wounds crying out to be healed. Just pour pink paint over them and everything will be all better. In fact, many pods insist in their guidelines that any posts indicative of conflict will be summarily deleted. I avoid such pods like the plague, since they deny us our struggle, and merely seek to      'lip-service' the aphorisms of the ancient lightworkers.

They deny LIFE.

These frightened folks tend to rile me more than the complex exchanges between ideological opponents seeking common ground. It's almost as if they have no problems that their positive thinking can't solve.

I meet these individuals in my practice on a daily basis and have come to see this as a feint, a delusion, a foil, because under all their peace and light is a boiling cauldron of emotion just waiting to come to the surface and murder everyone in their path.

They scare me...

"Don't you dare," they seem to say, in their desperate need to hide from their own emotional self.

Here ye, oh, lightworkers of the world.

You are not saving the world by spreading your light. The light comes from intimately understanding one another, not from deflecting that understanding through platitudes that seek to offset negativity. Face your fears through another. Intimacy demands discomfort in vacating all our pretty ideological boxes and packages. Your light merely prolongs the inevitable intimacy that our conflict has the potential to bring.

Throw away your pithy quotes and your scripts from the "masters."

I ask... WHAT SAY YOU!

So here's the preamble for my new pod:

Mature conflict is encouraged in the often painful search for the truth that is discovered by all differently. Even immature conflict is warranted as long as adults can apologize for their mistakes of the mouth. If you are afraid of conflict, you are asked to risk you plastic sense of peace and seek the intimacy that true depth of engagement brings. Real peace is not born of new age platitudes and clichés, but of engagement. Swim in my depths and I will join with yours in our own Intimate Awakening. Spreading of light allowed only through depth of engagement.

Ha! Good grief! Aren't we all lucky that I have no intention of ever starting a pod. But with all these pods and their restrictive guidelines, I have actually been considering such a risky venture.

But, with so many lightworkers, who would participate in reality?