Open-Secrets

Tag: true-nature

  • Violence & Ennegram Personality Types

    WAKE UP!
    To The Subtle Violence of Personality

    wake up to violenceA friend (point 8) commented to me once about “the bad rap eights get”. This was in response to an article on the enneagram of personality types that had appeared in a major metropolitan newspaper. The article quoted one person’s viewpoint that “eights are awful to be married to!” As an eight myself, I could relate to both my friend’s concern and the person quoted in the article because I too was married to an eight and it was the worst 18 months of my life!!! Those eights are they too much or what?

    I have attended a number of enneagram functions and have many friends and acquaintances within enneagram circles. Invariably, I hear comments about how eights are the worst. In studying the enneagram, I learned that no particular fixation is better or worse than any other. Why then do we continue to hear comments like this? (more…)

  • Google God for Guidance

    I’m still reading Your Soul’s Compass and came across a paragraph I just have to share –

    Seeking spiritual guidance is often misunderstood as consulting a cosmic Dear Abby or a universal Google for advice on relationships, health, and illness, pathways to financial freedom, or even great car deals. While there’s guidance out there fabout everything in life, the kind that we’re most concerned with here sheds light on the spiritual journey itself. Are we going in a direction that helps us become less selfish, more compassionate, and peaceful? Or have we gone off on a tangent that keeps us tethered to old habits and perceptions, which perpetuate fear, greed and ignorance?

    That first sentence is wonderful. Many people seem to approach God, True Nature, Allah, Jehovah, Brahma… with this kind of cause and effect orientation which is clearly an anthropomorphism of the divine consciousness.

    I don’t want to get into that debate, but what do you think – can you Google God in your head or heart?

    Google-god

    I guess if that doesn’t work then…

    Dear Abby,

     

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  • Inner Journey

    Inner_journeyGoogling – Inner Journey – I see in the search results many people offering inner journey newsletters and inner journey workshops, but in the descriptions, I see very little that may define what the inner journey is.

    I guess we assume that everyone knows what the inner journey is.

    For the (inner) journey is essentially a journey home, to our original primordial ground and source. To be at home is to be whole, contented, and at peace, for no reason but that we are abiding in our true nature. – A.H. Almaas

    Inner Journey is, in a way, a strange description because, according to most that make the journey – when you get to where you’re going, there is no inner or outer and you never really went anywhere.

    Alice: I was just wondering if you could help me find my way.
    Cheshire Cat: Well that depends on where you want to get to.
    Alice: Oh, it really doesn’t matter, as long as…
    Cheshire Cat: Then it really doesn’t matter which way you go.

     

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  • Narcissistic Injury

    NarcissismNarcissistic injury is one of those loaded psychological terms. In fact, all things narcissistic seem to be. I think that is because the word narcissism or narcissistic is generally used to describe pathology and not the over-arching reality that everyone with an ego (everyone) is a narcissist.

    Narcissistic defenses are present to some degree in all people, but are especially pervasive in narcissists. These defenses are used to protect the narcissist from experiencing the feelings of the narcissistic injury. – StudyWorld

    Ego identity, the false self, or whatever you want to call it, is fundamentally a case of mistaken identity. The “I” or “me” involved in this case of mistaken identity is self-centered and self-promotional.

    Narcissists cannot love others because they don’t love their TRUE self. They “love” a fiction – the FALSE SELF. They are full of feelings of inferiority and self-loathing and they are very sadistic and self-punishing when they incur a narcissistic injury (when they “fail”). You can’t love others if you do not love yourself. Moreover, narcissists do not understand what it means to be human (i.e., they lack empathy). To them other people are bi-dimensional, cartoon, cardboard cutouts, or, at most, an audience. Others are FUNCTIONS, INSTRUMENTS, EXTENSIONS. They, therefore, cannot be loved for what THEY ARE but only for WHAT THEY PROVIDE. This is no real love. Sam Vaknin

    Narcissistic injury can be understood at a more macro level to be the wounding that occurs from not being seen or not being heard. Narcissistic injury, when experienced at its root, is the most painful wound in the soul – the wound of disconnection from True Nature.

    The narcissist says, “I exist.” A narcissistic injury is you showing him that he does not exist in your life. Kicking him in the teeth and telling him he is a jerk is not a narcisstic injury– because he must therefore exist.

     

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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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  • Transformation

    Transformation almaas

    True understanding has to do with transformation. If there is no transformation at the moment of understanding, then there is no real understanding . – A.H. Almaas

    Last night, I heard A.H. Almaas give a talk on transformation. He began the talk by saying he had been wondering what was the most transformative experience in his life. His conclusion was – none – experiences do not transform the soul.

    What transforms the soul is staying in touch with what underlies all experience – True Nature. Almaas pointed out that it is easy to get lost in the content of our lives – our experiences. Being in touch with one’s essence needs to be the first priority, the first love.

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