Open-Secrets

Tag: survival-instinct

  • Survivor: Berkeley California

    Survival Instinct Explored in Berkeley, CA

    survival_instinctThis past weekend, I attended A.H. Almaas’ winter retreat in Berkeley. The retreat focused on the survival instinct and most agreed it was a timely presentation.

    Two years ago we worked on the social instinct and last year we explored the sexual instinct. Almass explores the instinctual drives in relationship to the Enlightenment Drive – the dynamic quality of the soul that impels it toward awareness of its true nature and freedom from limitation and the past.

    The way we’re approaching the question of instincts and their drives is not a question of being free from them, it is a question of freeing them to be what they can be, and evolve and develop in a way that can become part of our realization, support for our realization. – A.H. Almaas

    Almaas sees nothing wrong with the survival drive or the other instinctual drives. They are natural components of animal existence and evolution. The challenge for human beings, who have the capacity to muck up the natural functioning of the drives, is how to help the drive do its job most effectively.

    Our capacity for reflective consciousness brings with it the capacity for projection and distortion of  what is really happening. The past gets projected onto the present situation and, the drive which can’t tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined, kicks into gear with its fight or flight response.

    The current economic situation is raising a lot of safety and security concerns in people. Recessions, property, money and wealth are really not the types of dangers our instinctual drives evolved to engage. We’re hardwired to respond to actual immediate physical threat, not the imagined consequences of Bernie Madoff ripping us off or the consequences of job loss or a dwindling 401K.

    We have become so identified with our possessions, that we connect them very strongly to our survival. Survival now has a strong connection to money – and it’s partly true, but mostly not. A downgrade in lifestyle or having to eat beans instead of beef is not about survival. It’s about comfort, preference and self-image. The self-image is what becomes threatened – and – since the hard wiring can’t tell the difference between the body and the self-image, fear, anxiety, worry and even terror result.

    The direct connection to money is something we all need to explore – what it is, what does it stand for, what it means personally, how to work with it and relate to it.  This holds true for all of our possessions. This type of exploration will help to reveal the distortions that are interfering with the free functioning of the drives and thus the potential of the consciousness aligning them with the drive for enlightenment.

    A very interesting three days.

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  • Survival Instincts

    Survival_instinctSurvival Instincts and Survival of the Fittest cannot excuse character and personality distortions. Greed and competitiveness are not survival instincts. The survival instinct, as I understand it, arises out of the brain stem, the reptilian brain.

    Modern Humans Retain Caveman’s Survival Instincts – Like hunter-gatherers in the jungle, modern humans are still experts at spotting predators and prey, despite the developed world’s safe suburbs and indoor lifestyle, a new study suggests.

    If we took the survival instinct down to its roots, we would probably call it something simple like the life force. It is the force that underlies all life, not so much survival but the creative force. What is that mysterious force that keeps asserting life?

    The instinct to survive is a myth. It is however an instinct that humans can invent and practice if they like. What annoys me is when they try to use it to explain various animal behaviors, or their own selfish behavior, thereby displaying their ignorance of the wildness and the real natural world. The reason animals want to live is not to survive, but to have more fulfillment (fun). The ‘survival instinct’ appears to have originated from human misconceptions about evolution, where they think that the prime motivation of evolution is to produce ‘survivors’ and offspring. They forgot that the real goal of evolution is to contribute to the wildness! – Dr. Beetle

    What’s driving your instinct to survive?

     

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  • Self-Centeredness vs. Selfishness

    self-centered selfish almaas instinctsMany 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.

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