Gaia Community: mikeS's Blog

Does Adyashanti Cherish Illusions

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 15:37:50 GMT

Delusion dwellers

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 enlightenment is the quest for truth or reality. It’s not a quest for ideas about truth—that’s philosophy. And it’s not a quest to realize your fantasies about truth—that’s fundamentalized religion. It’s a quest for truth on truth’s terms. It’s a quest for the underlying principle of life, the unifying element of existence.”

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."

“In your quiet moments of honesty, you know that you are not who you present yourself as, or who you pretend to be. Although you have changed identities many times, and changed them even in the course of a single day, none of them fit for long. They are all in a process of constant decay. One moment you’re a loving person, the next an angry one. One day you’re an indulgent, worldly person; the next a pure, spiritual lover of God. One moment you love your image of yourself, and the next you loathe it. On it goes, identified with one self-image after another, each as separate and false as the last.”

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.

“When this game of delusion gets boring or painful enough, something within you begins to stir. Out of the unsatisfactoriness of separation arises the intuition that there is something more real than you are now conscious of. It is the intuition that there is truth, although you do not know what it is. But you know, you intuit, that truth exists, truth that has absolutely nothing to do with your ideas about it. But somehow you know that the truth about you and all of life exists.”

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.'

“Once you receive this intuition, this revelation, you will be compelled to find it. You will have no choice in the matter. You will have consciously begun the authentic quest for enlightenment, and there is no turning back. Life as you’ve known it will never be quite the same.”

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.

“Seeking truth can be a game, complete with a new identity as a truth-seeker fueled by new ideas and beliefs. But ceasing to cherish illusions is no game; it’s a gritty and intimate form of deconstructing yourself down to nothing. Get rid of all of your illusions and what’s left is the truth. You don’t find truth as much as you stumble upon it when you have cast away your illusions.”

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.

“Truth can’t be found by seeking it, simply because truth is what you are. Seeking what you are is as silly as your shoes looking for their soles by walking in circles. What is the path that will lead your shoes to their soles? That’s why the Zen master said, “Do not seek the truth.” Instead, cease cherishing illusions.”

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.

“To cease cherishing illusions is a way of inverting the energy of seeking. The energy of seeking will be there in one form or another until you wake up from the dream state. You can’t just get rid of it. You need to learn how to invert it and use the energy to deconstruct the illusions that hold your consciousness in the dream state.”

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.

“This sounds relatively simple, but the consequences can seem quite disorienting, even threatening. I’m not talking about a new spiritual technique here; I’m talking about a radically different orientation to the whole of your spiritual life. This is not a little thing. It is a very big thing, and your best chance of awakening depends on it. “Do not seek the truth; simply cease cherishing illusions.” And if you’re like most spiritually oriented people, your spirituality is your most cherished illusion. Imagine that.”

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.

Tags: Spiritual Journey

Fear and Greed in an Age of Desperation

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 15:18:56 GMT

Erlend Mork

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."

Tags: Finite and Infinite Games

Six Billion Dreams

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 19:54:09 GMT

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)

Tags: Finite and Infinite Games

Love is an Infinite Feedback Loop

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Fri, 29 May 2009 17:03:00 GMT

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.

Tags: Intimacy

Your Mood is Your Truth

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 16:53:15 GMT

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

Tags: Spritual transformation

Conversations with ego: "Starting a Pod"

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 12:49:36 GMT

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)

Tags: Conversations with ego

Conversations with ego: "Serious Business"

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:18:18 GMT

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?

Tags: Conversations with ego

An Amateurish Review of Robert Master's Book: "Meeting the Dragon

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 17:08:19 GMT

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

Tags: Book Review

YEAH!! A NEW POD!

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 20:59:33 GMT

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

Tags:

Charge of the Light Brigade!

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:52:31 GMT

Lightworkers Attack!

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?

Tags:

Conversations with ego: "Awakening"

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 21:54:41 GMT

The Awakened Kitty

Mike: WOW! Unbelievable! HaHa! I now finally realize what "Awakening" is!

ego: Oh? And what's that, mike?

Mike: It means that I don't need to seek "Awakening" anymore, because I am already Awakened!

ego: Uh, Ok... that's fine, but...we don't seem to feel any different than we did a moment ago.

Mike: Ack! You don't understand. It's not about any state of mind it just IS!

ego: Uh...what just "IS"?

Mike: Awakening!

ego: I'm not sure I get it. What have we "awakened" to?

Mike: "We" ! no, no no, I have "awakened to my True Self.

ego: Your true self...does that include me?

Mike: Well, no...actually, I have to "transcend" you and you have to dissolve or be annihilated or something like that.

ego: Well, you better be clear on this mike, because...I'm still here...are you sure you're awakened? Maybe I'm just supposed to hang around a little while longer.

Mike: Huh? ...No! my awakening is supposed to be egoless. Don't you get it?! You're the whole damn problem...all your striving and desiring...you're the cause of all my suffering and to be awakened is to be without YOU!

ego: But, Mike, who would you be... without me?

Mike: Free! Finally free of all my suffering. All the suffering that YOU cause.

ego: Uh, ok then... I'll just step back here awhile, out of the way, and let you enjoy this "awakening." But when you need me, just go ahead and give me a shout.

Mike: HA! Need you!? You just don't get it. Our relationship is over, kaput, no more!

ego: Ok then, but......oh yeah, I almost forgot, don't forget to pay the electric bill cause you're now 5 days late. Oh and don't forget, you're supposed to pick up your daughter after school today and make sure you stop and pickup your prescriptions on the way home. Hey, look at your hair! Aren't you due for a haircut? By the way, shouldn't you be thinking about getting something for your wife's birthday and another thing...............

Mike: (sigh)

Tags: Conversations with ego

Conversations with ego

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 13:36:24 GMT

cat voices

Mike: That's it! I've had it with you! I want nothing more to do with your sheit!

ego: Gosh, Mike, what could be the problem?

Mike: You know darn well what the problem is! Every time I write a post, you tell me "this is it! this is the one that's gonna trip out the entire world and everybody will think you're a genius." You get me all friggin' hyped up, only to realize that nobody reads it. Nobody's interested. It's a flop!

I'm sick and tired of this roller coaster ride you've been takin' me on my whole damn life. My whole life you have consistently jacked me up, only to crash every time. I can't be happy listenin' to you and doing what you say.

So, from now on, we're through. I'm done with you! From now on you need to stay out of my life!

ego: But, Mike, I can't stay out of your life....I'm you.

Mike: Whaaa!?.....well...I guess that's true. But it doesn't matter... because I'm on a spiritual path to enlightenment. Ya know what that means, don't ya? It means your done. Finished! Because once I awaken to enlightenment your gone, dude. Your days are numbered. That's what "enlightenment" means... NO MORE EGO! No more you.

ego: That's fine, but if your going on a spiritual path to enlightenment, then, unfortunately, I'm gonna have to come with you. At least until you get where you're going. You do understand that, right?

Mike: Well...fine! I suppose you do have to tag along, at least until I get my enlightenment. But just stay outa my way, you hear! I can't have you buttin' in while I'm trying to become an enlightened master. This is a spiritual path I'm on, not an ego trip!

ego: OK. But since I have to be here... maybe I can help?

Mike: Help? You've been no help so far, so I can't see what you could do to help me get enlightened. How could you possibly help?

ego: Well, I could help you find the right books to read, the right groups to join and I could even assist in finding the best guru. I could even help you schedule your spiritual practices around the rest of your life and remind you when you're thinking too much and not meditating correctly.

You got to admit, we have learned a lot along the way and it seems a shame to trash it all now. Besides, you still need me to do other things like make money, get sex, justify your anger when others piss you off, make it seem like your intelligent when you're not, show you what to get serious about and what to ignore...

You've got to admit that I have helped you many times in negotiating that cold, cruel world out there. In fact, who would you be without me? Who would protect you?

Admit it...you know you love me.

Mike: Well...ok... I guess you can help sometimes. But I'll let you know when I need your help so don't be buttin' in when I don't need you.

ego: Ok, you got it, buddy! from now on I'll only take direction from you. Otherwise, I'll be as quiet as a mouse. Oh, this spiritual path to enlightenment will be such fun!

Tags: Conversations with ego

Pod Think?

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 22:45:32 GMT

I've been invited to join many different pods throughout Gaia and I've joined some on my own. Some invitations I accept since I don't like being rude (well, most of the time). Unfortunately, most of the groups tend to rely on an ideology and expect the discussions to adhere to that ideology. Some groups are about 'doing' or action. Others adhere to a Buddhist or Integral ideology and some adhere to a spiritualized Christian viewpoint.

Problem is, that ideology tends to hem in and channel thought and this often occurs under the radar. Usually these pods originate with a "cultivator" who clearly has a particular bias in relation to a worldview (of course not all).

Many of the pods that I've joined, over the past approx 2 years, that adhere to an ideological perspective I've pretty much made myself scarce. That's because i don't adhere to any precise ideology and enjoy, as the integralists call it, "juggling perspectives." Yet, this has a tendency to rain on the parade.

Of course, if folks can't pin you down to any specific opinion or way of thinking they then tend to get mighty perturbed. They then indict you as playing the game of "devils advocate" and, lets face it, nobody likes the devil.

In addition, what tends to occur, based on my brief study of pod member relations, is that certain pod regulars acquire a 'reputation.' This is because they often veer off course from the preordained path originally laid down by the pod originators. I have noted that frequently these folks are asked to exit or, most likely, they finally exit on their own since they feel their ideas are somewhat unwelcome and, like old soldiers they tend to just fade away.

"GroupThink" has been studied fairly extensivley by the psychological sciences and WIKI defines it as:

"a type of thought exhibited by group members who try to minimize conflict without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Individual creativity, uniqueness and independent thinking are lost in the pursuit of group cohesiveness as are the advantages of reasonable balance in choice and thought that might normally be obtained by making decisions as a group. During groupthink, members of the group avoid promoting viewpoints outside the comfort zone of consensus thinking."

Ahhh... good 'ole "comfot zone"! This seems to be an afflicton of many of the pods particularly those that rely extensively on some ideological basis as foundation for all discussion. In fact, as I write this I opened a gaia email, of a response to a previous comment I had made, asking me not to contribute any more "negative crap " HA! Gotta love it.

You see critical, analytical thinking which digs into ideas and "parses" perspectives (another accusation leveled against me) to discover the richness below the surface. However, digging in the dirt is not pretty and many would prefer we not do that!

Notice that the groupthink's chief defining property is the reduction of conflict. Therefore, making comments of a negative nature (and I don't mean offensive or attacking which are not welcome in any conversation) are anathema to most pod agendas.

In fact, this post will be construed in just such a manner by many of the 'positive' folks and because of its negative undertones will most probably be ignored.

Anyway, enough rambling. I haven't been posting for awhile, so I thought I'd simply jump in as my old controversial self and let 'er rip!

because....every rose has its thorns!

Peace Angels,
mike

Tags: Whatever

How do you know when you're on the right path?

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 17:22:58 GMT

You NEVER know and that's the beauty of it, because then it's a SURPRISE!!

Peace Angels,
mikeS

Tags: QaR, flow, path, calling, life

LAY DOWN YOUR DEFENSES

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Sun, 15 Feb 2009 15:04:37 GMT

Anger is a protective mechanism of the psychological ego-self and serves no other purpose. What once may have served as a prehistoric survival mechanism is now a general coping mechanism. Anger as a reflex, is easily projected outward without hesitation. We feel justified in presenting our anger. Yet, remarkably, we are more likely to express anger to a "loved one" than a stranger.

For many "love" relationships, expressing anger is more common than expressions of "love." In fact, for many relationships, anger is patterned and rather predictable. Often, the "dance of love" is completely overshadowed by the dance of anger.

To deny the underlying power differential between "loving" individuals is naïve. The ego demands control and, in fact, its only purpose is to perpetuate itself through persistent self-assertion in an uncontrollable world. The developing ego-self learns that it must engage the world by pressing itself against the world, in competition with other ego-selves also engaged in self-assertion. Parents endeavor to provide the tools necessary for success, when success is defined as ever-greater self-assertion. This is often referred to as "self-esteem" and includes 'justifiable anger' in the service of self-protection.

CONFLICT CIRCULARITY

The task for relationships is not to identify the details of this power differential, but to seek out the patterns. Conflict patterns are circular and your reaction to me is based on my reaction to you, which is from your reaction to me resulting from my reaction to you, on and on, seemingly ad infinitum. Couples miss the patterned circularity of their conflicts, in the ego's need to be absolved of guilt by projecting it upon the other in the heat of the moment.

In our never-ending ego battles you will struggle to indict my transgressions and defend against yours, while I, in turn, do the same. Never will we see the circularity of conflict and, for the ego-self, the devil is always in YOUR details and not MINE.

This is evident in the bigger, ‘more serious' world in which this circularity leads to great suffering. The Israelis indict the Palestinians who easily absolve their guilty by projecting back almost the same indictments upon the Israelis. In either case, one is victim while the other victimizer. This is true only in the episodic details of the present, while the big picture exhibits centuries of pure circularity. These ancient hatreds need be exposed so that mutual guilt can transition to a mutual innocence. If we are all guilty, then logic holds, we must really all be innocent.

Yet, the pattern in both world affairs and our 'love' relationships demands that for me to be innocent, you must be guilty. The ego-self can only sense unified oneness and never know it fully, since such a unification is perceived as death to the separate self.

IT IS NOT ATTACK BUT DEFENSE THAT YOU SUFFER FROM

This dynamic is no different for couples seeking love, but projecting anger. However, the real problem is not so much in the attack, but in the need for defending. Attacks, although patterned and often chronic, are essentially episodic or intermittently explosive. Yet, it is these episodes that prompt your need for defenses and once defenses are emplaced, they tend to wall of the ego-self that is continuously in preparation for battle. The psychological ego-self essentially becomes entombed in its own preparations against attack. This can only drain the élan vital that is the joy of living with and through others.

Certainly, we have "loving" moments, good days and even weeks, but the patterns are rigid and defenses lay in wait. The ego-self must be protected from psychological attack. This is no different than if your body demanded survival tactics in the wild thereby preparing for the body's protection from wild animals. Your senses would be acutely honed for gross incidents of physical attack. However, psychological attack requires more persistent vigilance, since the attacks can be less gross and much more subtle.

The subtleties of psychological attack require that you know my weaknesses and I know yours. Covertly, we gather ‘intelligence' over many years of sporadic incidental conflict. Early in the initial stages of our ‘love,' we exposed ourselves in the full trust of this "love" and the belief that it could never be breached. You could tell me anything.

Yet after the infatuation stage, real life weighed upon us and mistakes were made and disagreements formed. From those mistakes the ideations of the past were replaced by battle lines. You didn't even realize that gradually, over time, you were developing strategies of ego-self-protection. The old adage "the past only exists when you think about it" is the chief rule of engagement, because it is imperative that you "think about it" always. How can you not think about what I've done to you, yet conveniently you may forget your role in our circle of attack. You may forgive, but you will not forget and thus, the defenses stand fast.

Now there are limits to an intimacy, or Deep Understanding, that was supposed to be unlimited and uplifting. Now you will limit what I can know as you gradually build your fortifications. At first, this emotional embargo is barely noticeable even to your ‘self.' But eventually the mutually imposed fortifications become apparent on both sides, often too late. Rigid fortifications can be virtually impossible, and take enormous amounts of time, to dismantle and, in our busy postmodern world, who's got the time? Just start over with some 'body' else!

THE SOLUTION IS EASY

You must lay down your defenses before you surrender your arms.

This is opposite the conventional solutions that seek to reduce offensive conflict episodes, but fail to fully understand the emotional suffocation in the ego's need for constant defense. This is most likely because conflict is observable and measurable, while your defenses are known only to you. Yet, after each episode of conflict, you secretly applaud your readiness and reinforce yourself for future engagements. Although you still claim to love the other, the fact is that love has no reason for defense.

Only strangers attack and defend, since obviously, love is NOT war.

It is the constant preparation for conflict that stifles the mutual joy of intimacy and NOT the conflicts themselves. What are you defending against? What do you actually fear? In preparation for attack, intimacy is stifled and cut off. Even when conflict is visibly absent, defensive preparations lay in wait.

If intimacy is stifled, the entire ego-self concept must wither since it transforms and grows only through intimacy, or deep engagement with the loved one, others and the world. Is it any wonder why we are all so estranged from one another? This can only indicate estrangement from your 'self.' When you look at me and wonder where have I gone, don't fail to ask "but, how did I lose myself." The answer is that you lost your 'self' in your defenses.

Here is the key to letting down your defenses. The same defenses you embrace to protect yourself, you project onto the other. You cannot see my defenses, but since you have your own in place, the assumption is that I, too, am so prepared.

Therefore, the ‘me' you protect yourself from is YOU.

See me as defenseless; otherwise, you will never surrender your own fortifications. If we are both defenseless what then, can we be guilty of, since a defense presupposes guilt. Make no mistake, what you see in me, you acknowledge in yourself. What is shared can only be strengthened. Share your defenselessness and inadvertently, you will share love.

Thanks,
MikeS

Tags: Intimacy

The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Sat, 14 Feb 2009 20:43:18 GMT

You must wear the badge of shame when you have been graciously chosen by a pod cultivator to be moderator, but then have your knuckles rapped by that very same cultivator for disrespect or ad hominem attacks. Therefore, in order to at least retain some shred of dignity, you have no choice but to relinquish your post and exit quietly.

Nevertheless, can paradigms be questioned respectfully? Is respect a relative interpretation that must be sacrificed when questioning beliefs? Should beliefs not be questioned in the retention of peace and tranquility? Is the questioning of belief-systems a demonstration of intolerance if the questioning does not seek to replace one belief for another, but merely to question all beliefs?

An ego-self is maintained through its beliefs. A ‘self' cannot exist without a ‘belief-package' to assert its reality or ‘realness.' A baby's self is tenuous and developing and will try on numerous belief systems before it resigns itself to a core system of beliefs or core-self. Aspects will be altered as an infant grows and this is referred to as "self-development," which will continue throughout life. Yet, the core-self is developed primarily in the formative years in which the growing infant realizes it is a body in a world. The ego-self not only severely restricts change of this body-world belief, but also will resist change to the cascading subordinate or subsidiary beliefs that reinforce this primary structure.

In the adult years, one paradigm that I believe competes with the primary monetary-value paradigm, but has yet to overcome it, is the religious or god paradigm.

Conceptualizations of god are paramount to a ‘self' believing it's in a mind, but knows mind only through ‘experience,' while it knows body and world through bodily sensation as processed in mind. The ego-self of the mind instinctually seeks to learn who and what it is and this understanding is primordial to egoic intellect.

We really can't refute the relevance of the god paradigm to an egoic mind, since history demonstrates that global conflicts have been fought over the predominance of specific belief systems revolving around god (religion).

Such wars are available for microcosmic view within the pods of Gaia, particularly those that focus fairly exclusively on god paradigms. Often this occurs through veiled anti-Semitism, atheist vs deist confrontations, but more often this is evident through eastern vs western paradigm conflicts or Judeo-Christian vs. Hindu-Buddhist.

Yet, try coming in without attaching to one or the other (eastern or western paradigms) but simply to question both and your deviance will be spotted by both sides and roundly excoriated. Not to attach to any conceptual interpretation by questioning all belief systems, is tantamount to deviance and it is clearly threatening to those egos whose religious beliefs are strengthened by pressing against opposing belief systems. If you do not present an opposing belief, but merely question the relevance of the predominating beliefs, you will be attacked personally. In fact, on one thread I was actually characterized as "hopeless."

Science is a continuous pattern of reductionism. Religion refuses to be reduced mainly because it can't be observed. However, I see no reason why the paradigms cannot be reduced conceptually nonetheless.

However, this becomes a tricky process since observables are not as powerful as beliefs and certainly studying and reducing our beliefs about the New Guinea tree-frog is not as all-encompassing, and thus frightening, as studying and reducing our beliefs about god.

Smashing paradigms is a risky business and if you take this on as a project, expect to be severely criticized and held in contempt. (I mean, just look at the contempt heaped on Ken Wilber. Of course I, in no way, compare myself to that bright mind, LOL!). The goal of an ego-self is to perpetuate and assert the reality of itself through attachment to beliefs. To question core beliefs is clearly discerned as attack on self and this demands counter attack strategies from the perceived victim. Try questioning all beliefs and you will be accused of "playing devils advocate" or as "abusing" others through "ridiculing" their beliefs.

But, as I've learned the hard way, fight back and you have thus indicted yourself as egoically attached as any other ego-self. In other words, you indict yourself as a ‘self' and a ‘self' is an easy target for attack. To question deeply held beliefs, with all their centuries old symbolism, analogical fantasies and metaphorical language, is to set yourself up for failure and you will not be liked, so get used to it.

However, you may come to enjoy it because, reducing the hallowed, unquestionable belief systems of others demands that same reduction of your own system of belief. No one is immune to smashing paradigms particularly the one doing the smashing.

Some days you will question if anything is "real" and in that moment you will have an experience that can only be referred to, in the western paradigm, as sensing an approach of "insanity." This is what the existentialists considered the fall into 'nothingness.' But you must tenaciously cling to some conceptual strings, because you have a family and need to work for a living, You can't let it all go. At least not yet.

This seems to be the "awakening" of the masters and it is in NO way egoless and, in fact, engages the ego-self fully. The reported levels of awakening clearly allude to paradigm reduction or stripping of beliefs and as you free yourself from one idolized belief after another, you experience a freedom directly from that dissociation.

The western philosopher Heidegger experienced it and wrote about it (Being and Time), although few could understand since, after the dissolution of the ‘given' paradigms, the new paradigm was completely constructed from scratch making the translation almost gibberish. Many scholars have compared "Being and Time" to ancient eastern philosophies which are also gibberish to Judeo-Christian paradigms.

My attempt to perform such reductionism through others has been disastrous as many are deeply entrenched in their defining of "faith" and this steadfast adherence will only ruin the experiment or game, since battles will ensue. However, many get that the game has no rules and feel a sense of enjoyment in playing without needing a learned frame of reference as anchor. Without an anchoring belief system the ego self will react either in fear or exhilaration. The infinite game has no outcome and this takes getting used to for some egos, who have spent a lifetime invested in particular belief-systems and awaiting an outcome or reward for such allegiance.

As I read about others who have pursued such a game or experiment, it requires that you become a free-agent or independent contractor, since nobody will have YOU.

Ahhh...the loneliness of the long-distance runner.....

mikeS

Tags: Spritual transformation

TRUST IN A BOTTLE: Oxytocin, the new magic elixir of love!

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 15:56:36 GMT

In my ongoing pursuit of understanding 'intimacy,' I came across some rather ludicrous, but still fascinating, information related to science's need to empirically identify and define every intrinsic experience available to human beings.

In it's need to define love based on observable evidence, science has claimed to identify the love hormone, "oxytocin." However, although the release of oxytocin is implicated in sexual mating and maternal instincts, surprisingly, it has also been shown to have a connection, albeit tenuous, to "trust and generosity."

Obviously, in our capitalist consumer society, any developments of science are immediately marketed as consumable products (remember "pheromones"?). Although the research demonstrating the effects of oxytocin on social affiliation is still largely unconfirmed with little replication, a company has recently introduced a spray product called, Liquid Trust

Here is the endorsement:

Imagine

Getting whatever you ask for
People trust what you tell them
Having a competitive edge over others

These things are possible. The key is Oxytocin. When people trust you, doors are opened that were always closed before.
There are different ways of increasing the Oxytocin levels in the people you interact with. Scientists say that simply touching someone who you are talking to, makes them produce Oxytocin. When that happens, they start to form a very strong bond with you. They trust you.
Liquid Trust gives you the added edge by releasing Oxytocin into the air around you. When you walk into the room, almost immediately, people will have a different feeling about you. Their Oxytocin level is rapidly rising. Throughout the day, Liquid Trust is working for you.

The problem is that science has yet to determine if oxytocin creates a desire for social affiliation/love or if the conceptualized desire to affiliate/love creates oxytocin.

Once again, science is promoting the theory that ‘mind' is a result of brain activity as opposed to the mind manufacturing brain activity in response to conscious and unconscious functioning - THOUGHT. We can see the brain but not the mind or consciousness and therefore, in terms of empirical observation brain activity must be the starting point. Unfortunately, in relation to the concept of love, the brain is the beginning and the end of all study.

We need be careful of the scientific empirical paradigm and its need to categorize all functioning to robotronic actions and behaviors reducible to nothing more than brain activity which provokes instinctual urges and drives.

I believe there is a deeper more profound conceptualization to 'love' that goes beyond surface sexuality and pair-boding. Intimacy is not available to the instinct driven animal kingdom and it seems sentience is a requirement for such higher states of "oneness."

Peace Angels,
mikeS

Tags: Intimacy

You Might as Well Face it Your 'Conditioned' to Love

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 12:28:24 GMT

My prvious posts address the assumed impossibility of unconditional love with the suggestion that it may not be as impossible as we may think.

This suggestion primarily addressed how we could acknowledge and strip away the conditions that we inadvertently and unwittingly apply to our intimate relationships based on a definition of 'love' as we believe it should be experienced. Although such acknowledgment may not bring one full circle to an unconditioned love for another, it may increasingly result in less conditions thereby opening up the possibility of an enlightening "surprise" in our relationships.

I am borrowing the concept of "surprise," as a state of mind, from James Carse and his book, "Finite and Infinite Games." The concept of Surprise is an openness to love, and life, that does not apply conditions, restrictions or limitations to your relationship with yourself, others and the world.

"To be playful is not to be trivial or frivolous or to act as though nothing of consequence will happen. On the contrary, when we are playful with each other we relate as free persons and the relationship is open to surprise."
"Because infinite players prepare themselves to be surprised by the future, they play in complete openness. It is not an openness as in candor, but an openness as in vulnerability. It is not a matter of changing one's unchanging identity, the true self that has always been, but a way of exposing one's ceaseless growth, the dynamic self that has yet to be. The infinite player does not expect only to be amused by surprise, but to be transformed by it..." (James Carse, "Finite and Infinite Games" p. 22-23)

I have been contemplating the numerous ways we apply conditions, hence limitations, chiefly when attempting to engage in close intimate relations with others and more specifically our 'love' relationships. The fear factor in protecting the "psychological self" is the reason conditions are applied. This hypothesis, put forward by many other brighter minds than mine, tends to address our fear of disclosure, or intimacy as deep understanding, for fear of attack. This is because the chief method of attaining self-knowledge is through intimacy or deeply engaging with others, but this can also become emotionally traumatizing if deep understanding is used for attack by others, thereby causing us to close off our channels for intimacy. Often this closing is best on memeroy of past attacks even as far back as childhood.

However, we tend to seek out one "other" as the main mode of self-reflection and this attests to our pairing up and coupling practices. Granted, this union-of-two is apparent in nature or the animal kingdom, but chiefly for instinctual mating purposes. It is true that we have the same drive to mate, but I believe we have a deeper, almost archetypal, drive for a Higher Union. This drive is deeper than what psychology considers as the "unconscious" and is possibly more of a sub-unconscious.

The problem is that this drive toward "awakening" through another is intensely frightening and, because of that fear, for most it is incomprehensible and resisted. This is because the potential of two joining as one annihilates the individual self. Of course, society teaches the exact opposite by reinforcing our need to essentially idolize the individual 'self' and that is referred to in pop psychology as "positive self-development." Therefore, we feel driven to protect the psychological self and, from birth, are taught the supreme importance of a creating a well-rounded self. This is why we maintain division or separation from others through conditions. If we spend decades building up a 'self' we therefore, must protect what we have constructed at all costs.

POSSESSION PRINCIPLE

The first condition of our love simply demands that I be with you, and no one else, in the sharing of sex and emotional bonding. The is the possession principle that most intimate relationships reflect and which is mandated by law. This legalized and sacralized mutual ownership seems advantageous on face value. Unfortunately, it tends to minimize intimacy, rather than magnify, since, in its present mandated form it becomes all to easy to sever your rights of ownership/possession upon the slightest provocation. Love unions mandated by church and state lose credibility only because church and state lack credibility. Nevertheless, we continue to participate in all three in the hope that either state, church or marriage will finally save us.

If there is to be a bond of intimacy it must be made sacred by the participants only. church and state sanctions should be unnecessary. The problem is that church and state sanction ‘love' unions in order to uphold the union, but actually do just the opposite. Deep Spirit should be the only sanctioning factor involved. Yet through church and state "marital" protections must be applied to protect children, uphold religious dogma and protect financial assets. I am not advocating the ban of marriage, just suggesting that we honestly evaluate the underlying dynamics that may impede intimacy. Denying the impediments, simply because "this is the way it's done," will not help to change the institutions and make them more conducive to an intimate knowing of one another.

The fact is that restructuring the institution of marriage in order to increase intimacy can benefit the world since, if I know you deeply I am less likely to harm you and it is only when we are strangers that the propensity for harm is increased. One could argue that parents often harm and abuse their children. My only response is that in many families intimacy is absent and was never available in the first place. Hence, the harm perpetrated by virtual strangers, since to truly hurt you I must make you stranger to me.

RECIPROCATION PRINCIPLE

Although this first 'love' condition is rather inconspicuous and unconsciously adhered to, since we have rationalized the need for legal unions, the second condition is just as unconscious. The second condition asserts that since I proclaim and exhibit my love for you, you MUST reciprocate and this is the reciprocation principle.

Now you might think that this condition is rather self-explanatory and elementary. Of course, why would I ‘love' you, engage in sexual relations, have children and create a 'life' with you, if you did NOT, in turn, love me. Duh!

But the problem is not in theory, but in practice. Who defines HOW I must reciprocate your love? YOU DO! But I too, in my relative defining of what love is, have determined how you must reciprocate my love back to me and, oh, what tangled 'love' webs we weave.

Reciprocating love is a gray area that we demand be black and white. This is because in a relative world, love is a many splendored, and highly relative, thing. I enjoy reading all the pop relationship experts (some who are Ph.Ds) who claim that, in relationships men and women each "speak a different language." Well, that may be, but I can tell you, as a psychotherapist specializing in relationships for the past 25 yrs, gay and lesbian relationships have just as many problems and break up just as often as heterosexual relationships. So who's speaking a different language here?

Actually, the language of love certainly is different. The problem is that there are 6 billion different renditions and each one applying different conditions based on each individual definition of love. Oh sure, there are always similarities, but based on all the variability that makes up each individual 'self,' the devil is in the details (and this is why the ‘devil' often wins and intimate relationships and marriages lose).

The concept of ‘love" is used on ad infinitum, but how do you define it? More specifically, how do you define love in relation to that significant other you have chosen to love "till death do you part." In your current relationship, do your definitions mesh? Are your mutual 'love' renditions congruent and perfectly compatible?

The answer is easy. Do you fight? If you do, then be clear on the fact that you both define love differently and assert conditions based on each unique definition of love. You give love based on your definition and you expect it be returned by that definition as well. But then, so does your partner, only based on his/her definition and most likely not yours. Thus, "what we have here is a failure to communicate" (Cool Hand Luke).

In western, and many eastern, societies the first condition, or the possession principle, is currently non-negotiable. However, I'm rather indifferent and unconcerned about what brings people together. But I am very concerned about them staying together (and rising up together through a deeper understanding) and that cannot occur unless the second condition, or "reciprocation principle," is closely examined.

I find it interesting that most people have difficulty defining their unique definition of what love is, but they will easily define how and when they are not getting it. Do you demand that love be reciprocated? Can you love your partner without reciprocation? How do you define the loving reciprocation of another and what frequency of that reciprocating would repress the fear of not receiving love?

You might as well face it, you're conditioned to love and those conditions have been determined and applied by YOU (I speak to both parties). The conditions may have been instilled in you from childhood as an attempt to limit fear, but now, only limit love. Time to examine and strip away your conditions because, essentially, they are most likely irrational and often totally absurd (in many ways, just like society).

Many would retort that we must set limits or conditions, such as, you must not physically hurt me, or lie to me, etc, etc. I agree that conditions can be set, but must be agreed on at the start. However, I recall a couple in which the wife was adamant that her husband could never physically strike her and he never did. However, she felt she had a right to smack this 230 lbs man around whenever she felt he deserved it and she did just that, which is what resulted in their meeting with me. She found it incredulous when I suggested that she cease and desist from striking him!

Basic survival and conditions of 'do no harm' are self explanatory and require little discussion. Yet, the deeper conditions resulting in beliefs such as, "if he/she loved me, he/she would....." are the more unconsciously insidious impediments to intimacy that need to be identified and possibly reframed in order to further an intimacy related to Deep Spirit and not just related to conditioned beliefs as to what love is or is NOT.

Time to start identifying your knee-jerk responses to one another, because these are symbolic of conditioned beliefs and may need to be dissolved in order to finally experience the love from Deep Spirit and the union of two into ONE. This type of unconditioned openness will be very "surprising" in that nothing you have learned, or been conditioned to believe about 'love' is true. But something more real IS the truth.

Happy Trails,
mikeS

Tags: Intimacy

The Unsustainable Pardigm of the Solitary Seeker

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 18:10:57 GMT

I read a wonderful blog post recently (brought to my attention by Nicole on the God Pod) that really was a real motivational read in that the author presented future epochal social and cultural changes that are incredibly exciting and sustainable. The author clearly has the desire that we all do to envision changes to an "outside" world to replace the unsustainable existence we now seem to perpetuate. She even links to a website that delineates these changes in more detail.

One thing that seems to be missing in the changes many claim we are about to envision, as the old, unsustainable paradigms and value systems drop off, are changes to relationships. More specifically the changes to intimate relationships, which may require the very definition of intimacy to be re-evaluated or reinvented so as to be sustainable in a post-modern world.

The problem with the technological fix, which is the chief mode of change most visionaries seem to address, is that we tend to become overly reliant on technology to advance our evolution of consciousness. I feel this is a repetitive problem we face in that technology becomes symbolic of an advanced collective mind, when in reality we continue to compulsively fear and hate each other as we always have throughout the preceding centuries. Though it seems sad to me, technology has not seemed able to accelerate our advancement in our simply being more able to love each other(or in reducing the harm we perpetuate upon each other in so many ways).

The couples I meet, day in and day out, for "therapy," continue to exhibit reliance on the same tired old unsustainable paradigm of relating. The same fights and conflicts, the same patterned defense mechanisms and self-protective strategies continue to be taught by parents to children who then grow to further perpetuate, overt and covertly, mutual victimization of one another in the failure to clearly see the truth of what they do to one another and the global effects of this continued paradigm of 'love.'

Of course, this perpetual relationship conflict is a microcosm of the world and the same self-protective strategies we engage with, in our so called ‘love-relationships,' are the same strategies nation-states employ to maintain sovereign power and self-protection. Your ego is as much a sovereign as any country and when that ‘psychological sovereign-self' experiences threat it will attack. Whether through ICBM missiles or emotional poison darts, self-protection is the paradigm that need be changed.

I don't think this change will be soon availed of and this is because conscious advancement or "enlightenment/awakening" continue to be advocated as a solitary self endeavor. The self seeks enlightenment or awakening and we have very few paradigms which proclaim that this journey is a mutual endeavor that requires two or more. It seems the chief paradigm is of the solitary seeker engaging in austere and esoteric spiritual practices and from that, increases his/her loving engagement with others and the world. I sense that this paradigm is no longer sustainable, merely because it tends to leave out others and deny that we journey together. I feel that this paradigm asserts that this solitary seeking will eventually lead to the unified oneness but negates that it is NOW. I believe this tends to negate that, as many "masters" have proclaimed, the journey is all there is and there is NO destination or goal to be achieved. It is in the journey together that you will find each other and YOURSELF.

In my opinion, the visionaries that seek to change the big picture by reinventing the little picture (the intimacy of two into one) will help create massive changes rather quickly. Otherwise, we merely delay our collective enlightenment, in seeking to tweak the old model/paradigm by applying band aids to surface wounds when the real disease is epidemic and deep within the conscious and unconscious individual and collective mind. Let's go there together and apply the cure so that we can never again think apart. Without this intimacy with ourselves how can we expect to achive the degree of intimacy with the world that will result in the love that will change it?

Tags: Spiritual Journey

The "Surprise" of Unconditional Love

http://mbsu.gaia.com — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 16:30:02 GMT

The best way to love another is to entirely surrender your conditions. Of course, that's called "unconditional love" and most will simply laugh at such an idea as utopist and unrelated to the ‘real" world.

Nevertheless, it seems clear to me that all authentic spiritual seeking has that goal in mind and absolutely nothing more.

Therefore, "heaven" is nothing more than a state of mind completely absent of all conditions (self-imposed limits) and "enlightenment" or "awakening" is to realize, even for a brief moment, that state of mind.

But then, where do your conditions come from and why do you have them?

Conditions come from fear and are actually a confused attempt to escape fear. But, we need to understand what fear is first, before we can tackle the conditions employed to escape fear. We've all heard that fear is nothing more than an absence of love, but what does that really mean?

Since we have decided that love comes in many shapes and sizes (depending on who we're loving at the moment), we have constructed fear to conform to that same variability. The largest fear is death and we have implemented all manner of protective survival mechanisms to help insure the delay of death (although, ironically, we realize death as inevitable anyway, so it's merely a matter of delaying).

Yet, fear also comes in smaller shapes and sizes too, such as anxiety, depression, anger, guilt, embarrassment, annoyance and whatever other labels we apply to varying levels of internal suffering. These renditions or symptoms of fear involve the threat of death to the psychological ‘self' and have little to do with the body (the ‘psychological self' is the package of beliefs you invest in as "you"). This is because we believe our actual death comprises not only the death of the body, but also death of the mind, both of which comprise the total definition of "self."

You have just as many, if not more, threats to the psychological self as to the body. This requires protective mechanisms to insure survival or delay of death. Because, lets face it, other than disease or attack, nowadays we have done a fairly good job of insuring bodily protection and delay of bodily death.

On the other hand, the psychological "self" is accosted and threatened constantly in today's society and this results in a great deal of fear and the need for pervasive self protective strategies (the domain of psychology and psychotherapy).

Unfortunately, these self-protective strategies, devised to protect the ‘self' from psychological harm, also impede LOVE. Conditions applied for self-protection are nothing more than the CONDITIONS you inadvertently apply to LOVE in order to protect yourself from the FEAR of psychological death (and threats thereof).

By setting conditions, you mistakenly believe that love will be more available and fear less. Note that the first condition we set to love is that it can only be available from certain specific bodies, which we have chosen TO love, since we certainly do not expect love from the entire world nor do we expect to give it TO the world (although the "enlightened" ones claim to do just that).

The next specific condition we apply to those lucky few is that they return love TO us. Therefore, right out of the starting gate we have applied conditions to what every religion informs us is, in truth, UNCONDITIONAL. Most of us are aware of this unconditional aspect and thus we make compromises such as "well, that may be fine for God or Mother Teresa, but I'm just ‘Joe six-pack' and can't be expected to meet such lofty heights." Hmmm...I wonder if God thought that when he thought YOU into Awareness? Or could it be that God truly expects YOU to love like God in order to know God?

For the most part, we have all basically denied any higher love functioning than what we see and learn from others (parents) and just accept it and this is why we have a divorce rate above 50% and live in our separate domestic hell for most of our lives. But, as they say, some things never change (particularly when we have learned that they can't and refuse to question that learning)

So after the first two conditions I highlighted above, we then begin to set a varying array of numerous other conditions upon the love object(s) and this is based on who we are ‘loving' at any particular time. Woe be it, to the one who fails to meet YOUR conditions and fails to meet them often. Obviously, if conditions are not met, fear is no longer repressed and can rise up with a vengeance (which is obvious, since the product of fear is always vengeance and attack).

Rather than YOUR fear being seen as a product of YOUR silly, irrational conditions, you see it as a result of the loved one failing to meet YOUR conditions. Note the infamous proclamation heard throughout the world: "If you loved me, you would...." But how often do we hear, "I love you with no conditions"? Rarely, and this is because just as you impose your conditions upon me, I too, impose mine upon you.

In fact, I have my own conditions learned from childhood and I feel compelled to add new conditions based on protection from your conditions, which you too, learned in childhood. This results in the anxiety, depression, anger and guilt often endemic to close, romantic relationships and marriages because, it does seem, the closer we are, the more conditions are required to offset fear. But these symptoms of fear are also experienced when the world refuses to meet our conditions for love. Thus, "I will love the world when it shows me love by giving me...."

This fear is most likely due to the threat of loss of psychological ‘self' to the other. Which, ironically, is the reason the intimate relationship was initiated in the first place?

The strong magnetic pull to Join-as-One is the foundation of soul or spirit. The dual couplings and pairings we engage in with others merely mimic, on a microcosmic scale, the Deep Spirit desire we have to join with everyone and the universe macrocosmically. Most of the stress and conflict we experience in our lives is nothing more than our attempts to resist that magnetic pull to join; with other individuals and the world, because this threatens the psychological ‘self' which we believe is what we ARE.

So what about those mother child relationships that many define as naturally unconditional? Well, the mother simply imposes less conditions on her child as there is less fear. In fact, so few conditions are applied as to make it seemingly unconditional. However, although this mother-child love relationship is often deemed of an unconditional nature, there are so many exceptions to the rule as to completely negate the rule, based on the large number of maternal caregivers who have abused, neglected, estranged and literally murdered their children. The fact is that the mother-child love relationship is simply a relationship that in most cases lacks the prevalence of fear found in other relationships and as such, is merely less conditional, but rarely, if ever completely without condition and hence "unconditional."

At the very start of your life journey (early childhood), you learned that certain conditions must exist in order for love to exist. Most likely, this originated from lessons learned from those who clearly did love you, but at the same time needed to protect their own psychological "self" because they in turn learned this was necessary in order to experience "love." Therefore, it was necessary that your parents teach you the conditions that they believed help kept them safe. They didn't teach you out of hate, but from a mistaken notion of love. So what conditions do you teach your children?

Hush, my baby. baby, dont you cry.
Mommas gonna make all of your nightmares come true.
Mommas gonna put all of her fears into you.
Mommas gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She wont let you fly, but she might let you sing.
Mommas gonna keep baby cozy and warm.
Oooo babe.
Oooo babe.
Ooo babe, of course mommas gonna help build a wall.

(Pink Floyd, "Mother")

Unfortunately, conditions tend to limit or even completely stifle intimacy and love. But this is true for you only if you believe that unconditional love can be a reality. Otherwise, you will defend your conditions to the death, "if he/she really loved me, then..."

Sadly, as a result, you may die without ever truly experiencing love and many do just that, in fact, most. However, maybe that is the point of "reincarnation."

Therefore, the solution should be in significantly reducing your conditions by surrendering your need for protection and I am speaking primarily about psychological self-protection. What you actually do is compel the "loved one" to surrender their conditions, denying that they imposed conditions in response to your conditions and you them - round and round we go on the carousel of conditional love.

Identifying your conditions may seem difficult and requires excruciating honesty. But I believe it is a good first step since most folks are rarely even cognizant of what conditions they have imposed and unconsciously place upon others and the world.

To think that you simply do this to yourself is, for most, incomprehensible. This means that for you, I am the reason you are devoid of love and if only I could change, love would be appear, but if not then you must seek another and another and another and......

HA! But that's also what I tell myself about YOU!

Love is definable only when it is unconditional, but words cannot express it and any attempt at defining simply makes it a platitude. Therefore, the less conditions the more it can be experienced as what it is, which you cannot know until the conditions you apply to yourself and others are discarded.

In giving up our silly conditions, we then become prepared for SURPRISE, which is another definition of "unconditional" love, since "surprise" really defines nothing at all. Just an openness to be free of conditions, so as to see what happens. This is a very precarious and frightening place to be in for most, but it may be necessary to finally experience love as it was meant to be.

Peace Angels,
mikeS

Tags: Finite and Infinite Games