Open-Secrets

Author: John

  • Belittling Whittling

    Self-esteemThey live among us and seem to be breeding faster than a warren of rabbits on amphetamines. Chip, chip, chip…

    They spend their days whittling others down. They are the belittlers, the whittlers of others’ self-esteem. Whether their actions are conscious or unconscious, these distorted souls often display a self-righteous attitude to justify their violence.

    How do we handle judgmental, critical people who seem stuck in a pattern of behavior so narrow that relating to others is reduced to an endless stream of put-downs and objections?

    We could handle it the way another mindless group of ignoramuses always offers up as a solution to complex issues – “Nuke ‘em all and let God sort it out.”

    We could try reasoning with the assassins of self-esteem, but this type of ingrained behavior is usually indicative of minds too shallow to reflect on the possibility of personal improvement opportunities on their end.

    The only course of action that holds any hope is for victims of character violence to explore the depths of their own psyche to ferret out the unconscious material that gets hooked by personal attacks from others.

    The focus is the dignity of the soul, the nobility of being, the preciousness of life.

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  • Non-Doing is Brewing

    Non-doing-brewingHow often do events and daily drama trap us in reactivity?

    Reactivity seems to always engage us in some kind of doing response. In fact, the reactivity itself is a doing. When we react, we’re always taking the world and ourselves to be something other than they are – and this is a subtle form of doing. Of course, I am defining reactivity here as mental and emotional response.

    This type of reactive state results in a form of mental grinding and emotional juicing that is fundamentally a form of suffering.

    In contrast to all of this doing drama is a way of being that centers around non-doing. Grokking the concept of non-doing can be difficult as conceptualizing is a form of doing and our whole lives have engaged us in doing. Doing to understand, doing to experience, doing to get, doing to survive – the doing list is endless.

    In approaching the practices of non-doing, we usually begin by making the non-doing practice a doing – it’s difficult and challenging to not do.

    Non-doing is like a form of brewing – we sit and don’t follow any thought, feeling or sensation. We rest in presence and awareness.

    Making tea involves brewing and it’s easy to apply an analogy here. When we sit in non-doing, abiding in presence and awareness, our consciousness begins to naturally move more into the foreground. Our presence deepens. Our awareness sharpens. Consciousness strengthens.

    Perhaps our souls are really tea bags looking for a good pot of hot water!

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  • Ego Self

    Ego-selfWhat is the Ego Self?

    Is the ego self something we need to reject?

    The ego self is what most refer to when they say – me, I, me self, you, her, him, and etc. The ego self is the sense of self that most people have any awareness of.

    That awareness is usually very vague. Very few take the time or expend the energy to investigate what the ego self is. Exploring the ego self can be very challenging and painful – something not very appealing to people in general because it does not usually appeal to the ego self.

    Many people talk about or refer to – their true self. Most talk about a true self is really about a renovation of the ego self. Listening to talk about the true self generally consists of listening to the ego self babble on about an extreme makevoer.

    It’s easy to spot this. The give-away is that the self talking expects to still be around to enjoy the fruits of its rebirth. In fact, what really happens in transformation of the ego self is the self ceases to exist as we have historically known it. There is no self there to pat itself on the back and say – job well done, now let’s go and save mankind.

    Taking the position or viewpoint of getting rid of the ego self only results in more internal conflict and more resistance from the self. Do you really know of anyone who jumps for joy when you offer to annihilate them?

    The most productive and meaningful way to move toward what is real is with openness. Open-ended curiosity about the self, the ego self, who we take ourselves to be – is the way to align ourselves with the optimizing force of reality.

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  • Visitor

     

    Past midnight

    The moon crept in

    Announcing Your arrival

    Grumbling

    Accompanied my hasty departure

     

    On the bare roof

    Sheer

    Night-sky majesty

    Flooding me

    With gratitude

     

    Poetry Expressing the Heart & Soul

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    Where does poetry come from? Where does poetry go? When you write poetry, is it a struggle, a flow – is it even you? Poetry has as many faces as souls on the planet. Share a bit of yours.

  • Introjection – Psychological Introjection

    introjectionIntrojection is a psychological process where the subject replicates in itself behaviors, attributes or other fragments of the surrounding world, especially of other subjects.

    In this case the subject is you – me – us – we. Well, anyway – it’s anyone who has been born of human beings and raised by human beings in some kind of human environment or family situation – on earth – as far as we know.

    Introjection is universal to ego structure though most psychological theory might not see it as ubiquitous as it is. Also, many might not see introjection functioning as a defense mechanism all of the time.

    Psychologist and others who study the mind might see introjection as a natural, necessary part of ego structure. And it is – BUT – like all ego structure – it’s phase specific and it remains operative in our psyches because life-long ego structure is a result of arrested development – arrested development from the perspective of the unfoldment of the soul.

    Looking at introjection in simplistic object relations terms – we take in images or impressions of an other (mom – dad) to become like them. We take on characteristics of our parents and others through modeling to achieve some sense of harmony with our environment.

    A necessary step in the psychological development of a human being. But all of this incorporated mental content can be dissolved as it is not necessary for identity. The difficulty lies in the fact that we have become so identified with the content, we lose touch with the medium that the content exists within – the soul or the field of being.

    Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose… Kris Kristofferson, Me and Bobby McGee

    Ain’t it the truth – when the content is gone – there is pure simple being without the past and awesome, vast freedom that we recognize as part of what we are.

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    Image by Alan Babbit

  • Quintessence – Quintessential Dimension

    hu almaas quintessenceA.H. Almaas’ summer retreat on Quintessence explored the subtleties of “the world of appearance,” the non-dual perspective and co-emergent reality (being/non-being).

    A lot of attention was given to non-doing – relaxing the attention to simple awareness and presence.

    Here is the title list of the 16 sessions:

    1. Inner Sanctum
    2. Treasure Trove
    3. Living Wonder
    4. Bowing Royalty
    5. Private Quarters
    6. The Timeless Now
    7. Spacious Mansion
    8. Ocean Without Shores
    9. Crystal Mirror
    10. Kernel of the Kernel
    11. Transcendent Science
    12. Royal Courtyard
    13. Bejeweled Palace
    14. Divine Sport
    15. The Missing Bridegroom
    16. Quintessential Delight

    What thoughts do these titles raise for you?

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Open-Secrets