Category: Observations

Self-Centeredness vs. Selfishness

Many spiritual teachings pick on the instincts equating them with temptation and “the Devil’s work.” The instincts are seen as antithetical to spiritual development and enlightenment.

In non-dual awareness, one sees how everything is part of presence, a unity.

Self-centeredness, inherent in the ego, is oriented around me first and what’s in it for me. At more subtle levels all experience is centered in the reference to a self. We are mostly unconsciousness.

According to A.H. Almaas when self-centeredness is insecure, it appears as selfishness.

Self-centeredness is an objective fact of the ego, everything is referenced to the self, one’s subjective experience.

Selfishness is an obstacle to spiritual growth. Selfishness indicates an insecurity which means we are not being our true self because he true self is selfless in its nature. There is not a self that is separate from True Nature.

Why does the self keep coming back? A huge factor in the resiliency of the ego self is the survival instinct. This instinct is tied to the body and the ego equates its own disolution with physical death. Mystics throughout the ages attest to the fact that life goes on when the ego disolves.

Synthesizing the survival instinct brings toether the first and seventh chakras, the transcendent and the physical.

[ad#post468]

August 24
The End of Ambition

Yesterday, A.H. Almaas began his lecture with:

We are all engaged in an interesting endeavor – to actualize something invisible in our lives, something not seen by the ordinary senses. This something transcends the biological imperatives of life. Our purpose transcends the simply biological.

The lecture went on to explore the phenomena of sexual desire and its relevance to one’s spiritual search and the maturation of the soul. Instinctual desire is a topic addressed by most spiritual teachings. Most see it as an impulse or motivation to be suppressed or gotten rid of.

Almaas looks at desire like any other phenomena – something to understand. His experience and teaching, the Diamond Approach, recognizes the value of understanding as a means of dissolving barriers and obstacles on the spiritual journey. This understanding is not an intellectual or theoretical process, but rather, a deep experiential experience.

To understand instinctual desire so that primordial energy can be used in the service of the maturing soul, one must first free it from all of the social, mental, emotional, and personal baggage that distorts it. When the instictual drive is returned to its pure state, it can then be synthisized into soul in a way that supports her movement toward the mystery of her deeper nature.

Image from Deric Bownds’ Mindblog

August 20
Transformation of Consciousness

Yesterday A.H. Almaas mentioned that essential presence is what transforms the consciousness.

One’s practice becomes how to stay in touch with essential presence and not about achieving any particular state of consciousnes.

Almaas said that there are very few people who can actually live from, move from, and act in essential presence though many think they do. It is more difficult than we imagine.

After one is able to maintain contact with essential presence, expressing it becomes the practice. The practice eventually leads to: essential presence is what acts, it’s what does, it is what is.

A result of this is that one’s life becomes a life of service – lived not from the perspective of the ego – getting what I want, enjoying what I want, but serving that deeper nature.

Image by Laura DuBois

August 14
Heart Space

I’m attending an intensive 10 day retreat on space/emptiness/absence. It is intense. Yesterday, we were exploring absence – non-being, the aspect of reality that underlies all manifestation of reality.

There are many levels and gradations of space leading to the void, emptiness, sunyata and ultimately – absence.

Last night, someone in a more social context said to me – Absence Makes the Heart Grow Fonder. I couldn’t help but reflect on this phrase from the more traditional meaning – The lack of something increases the desire for it.

Origin: The Roman poet Sextus Propertius gave us the earliest form of this saying in Elegies:

Always toward absent lovers love’s tide stronger flows.

The contemporary version appears first as the title of an anonymous English poem in 1602. It wasn’t until the 19th century that the phrase began to be used more widely, with Thomas Haynes Bayly’s (1797-1839) song Isle of Beauty, published posthumously in 1850:

Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Isle of Beauty, Fare thee well!

In the context of the work on absence and emptiness my thought is this:

The experience of absence is beyond any concept of self, there is no self to observe the experience of absence. In fact, there is nothing to observe. Not nothing in the sense that there is empty, vaccuous space. Nothing in the sense that no-thing exists – even emptiness. The effect of this on the heart seems to be more clarity, more pristine capacity for the heart to be it’s very nature.

August 8
Out of the Blue

How about those times when something totally unexpected arises? You think you have an idea of where your life is going and – whoosh – you’re left standing in front of the unknown. Does your mind, like mine, scurry to understand, to get things back on track – or do you observe, also like me, with amazement and wonder, watching to see how life will now manifest?

I wonder about the ego mind’s need to know, to live in the delusion that it can actually control events. I wonder about the depth of that insecurity and fear. Do you?

To that mind, the idea of going into that fear and insecurity makes no sense. Though I have ventured in there many, many times, I sit on this threshold feeling the tears and apprehension. Is the scent of despair the mind’s attempt to turn me away from what it sees as an abyss?

This place always fascinates me. I am surprised once again as the heart swells with love and interest in this new state of affairs – something much bigger than all of my history and belief envelops me as I take that first step into ??????

Here is an old poem that seems fitting –

The Same Old Story

The story’s the same

     The story’s the same

          The heart ever hungers

               while mind hunts the game

A heart once young as grass in the spring

dries with the lessons a harsh world can bring

Childhood’s innocence ran through the fields

and suffered the trauma that judgment yields

As I grew up and followed directions

spontaneity died from other’s inspections

The story’s the same

     The story’s the same

          The heart ever hungers

               while mind hunts the game

Now that I’m molded like a lump of old clay

my insides turn brittle as I bake day by day

My face is chiseled in a permanent frown

once green pastures have faded to brown

The body’s a sieve full of old holes

and life a collection of meaningless roles

The story’s the same

     The story’s the same

          The heart ever hungers

               while mind hunts the game

When life is a cup emptied by grief

the heart is readied for famine relief

A single tear falls on parched desert ground

prompted by childhood’s shocking rebound

Pain is a flood like rains in the spring

swelling the heart as new life they bring

The story’s the same

     The story’s the same

          The heart never hungers

               while mining its claim.

July 29
Is Your Reticular Activator Turned On?

Reticular Activators Going Nuts

Do you know what your Reticular Activator is?

Your reticular activator is that part of your brain that heightens your awareness of certain things.

You buy a red Volkswagen and suddenly you start seeing them everywhere. Pregnant women notice other pregnant women. That’s the sort of thing your reticular activator makes you aware of.

What does this have to do with you? Well, your reticular activator is already turned on. You’re surfing the net finding interesting things. You’ll be finding similarities, thinking provocative thoughts, and maybe making a comment or two on blogs you read.

The power of our networks extends far beyond our nervous system.

July 23