Filed under Notes on 31. May 2007 »
Our primordial identification with form, and as such a very common obstacle in spiritual practice, is identification with the body. The idea that I am this body and you are that body, both completely separate from everything else. Then on top of that come the labels we attach to the body, a physical description, judgment in comparison with other bodies, and of course our name, which, lumped together along with an endlessly complicated string of more concepts and labels, makes up who we think of as ourselves.
Breaking this identification with the body is difficult — simple in and of itself, but difficult because of the momentum of the idea that “this body is who I am.” It is the very foundation of our conditioning, deep seated and stubborn, and most people would probably find it absurd to even question it. “Of course this is who you are, just look in a mirror,” they might say.
The illusion starts to fade away when your level of awareness rises, and the more you go into stillness the deeper the recognition that who you are is beyond the body. So it’s not really necessary to address the issue on this level, as simply becoming still quietly resolves all doubts and form-based conflict, but using inquiry and pointers can be helpful and speed up the process.
The other day I came across a quote by Nisargadatta Maharaj, from the book I Am That, which is a useful pointer towards realizing who you are beyond the body. He was talking about how you are not anything that takes form, whether it be a thought, an experience, the body, etc., and that who you are is the witness to all of these. Everything happens and you are simply there to witness it, “look[ing] at everything as from a distance.”
Looking at everything from a distance is a way of detaching from the body and the world of form. Stepping back, observing how everything happens, how the body moves, how thoughts come and go. The idea of distance brings a bit of space between you and the world, between you and form, and points to a way of experiencing the world of form without being bound to it. Wearing the world like a loose garment, as St. Francis put it.
The idea of looking at everything from a distance is a sort of mantra: an idea that you return to over and over again, every time causing a tiny little shift in perception. Eventually, all this nudging at the foundations of the conditioning will cause it to crumble. And when you create space between you and the world of form, between you and the body for example, you will find yourself increasingly able to simply relax into it, abiding in peace within and looking out at the world from a distance.
Filed under Notes on 22. May 2007 »
I haven’t had much experience with using mantras, but lately I’ve been using a particular pointer I like as a mantra almost inadvertently. Not in the manner of repeating it over and over again to replace mental noise, but it is something I find helpful to repeat frequently over the course of a day, once every 15 minutes or so. It simply says: “I want nothing for myself.”
Contemplating this, the possibility of wanting nothing for myself, is a way of breaking the old conditioned habit of always being in the mode of asking “what’s in it for me?” I suspect that my conditioning is unusually heavy on this particular dysfunction, and so experiencing the shift into wanting to be of service, of wanting to give rather than wanting to take, or have, brings an incredible sense of relief.
The reason why it gives me such relief is that the habitual mode of perceiving, of always having an underlying motivation of wanting something for myself, is a major part of the egoic function. It is the backbone of the survival mechanism, always churning away trying to spot opportunities to extract some kind of gain from the world of form. Wanting something for ‘myself’ implies wanting something for my personal self, which is the ego. And because this way of thinking is based on the assumption that I am a separate entity in a world of competing entities, there is a built-in sense of tension that goes with it.
Now, it is important to know that the pointer, or mantra, is not saying that you should give away all your belongings and never acquire anything ever again. It’s fine to prefer red apples to green ones, or whatever, and it’s also fine to want this sweater or that book, etc. The function of it is to break the habitual pattern of thinking by reducing your self-importance so to speak. If I recall correctly, Jesus is to have said “deny thyself.” And what I take it to mean is basically the same as “want nothing for yourself,” namely to starve the ego of importance, not give it any reality and simply allow it to fade away.
When I contemplate wanting nothing for myself, I start to see the world in a different light. Everything becomes clear, because things and situations are no longer being seen through the layers of egoic bias and distortion, and everything seems to flow more smoothly. All your problems and dilemmas simply dissolve when you’re not thinking about what you want for yourself, and you may even begin to lose interest in personal gain — the pleasure of something is then seen as paling in comparison to the joy of nothing.
Give it a try and, whenever you remember, repeat the mantra “I want nothing for myself.” Contemplate it, meditate on it, allow it to work its way into your daily awareness and see what happens.
Filed under Notes on 14. May 2007 » [2]
I remember listening to a radio show with Byron Katie a few months ago, where she was taking calls from people and guiding them through their issues using The Work. A man called in with a list of potential problems and scenarios in his life situation, the usual sort of worries and dilemmas that people have regarding fulfillment and survival, how this might happen and that might happen; basically just the fearful and generic story of how everything might go wrong in the future.
So Katie asked him the question, “what is the worst that could happen?” He answered and she asked him “and then what?” Again he answered, and she repeated “and then what?,” again and again until the man had traced back his story, only to find that there wasn’t really anything there to be afraid of in the first place.
The thing with these fearful stories we tell ourselves about the future and how everything might come crashing down all around us, is that they are like a vague cloud of “something bad that might happen,” never really giving you a clear image of what exactly it is you are afraid of.
This is because the fear isn’t really about the particular content of your story — it is built into the structure of the conditioned sense of self, and so it doesn’t really matter what your story is about because the element of fear is independent of the content.
The method of writing out your stories of worst-case scenarios is briefly mentioned in Katie’s book Loving What Is
, where she writes:
“... imagine the worst outcome that reality could hand you. Imagine your worst fears lived out on paper. Be thourough. Take it to the limit. ... After each frightening scenario that comes to mind, imagine what could happen next. And then what could happen? And then what? Be a frightened child. Don’t hold back.”
When we do this, grab a hold of the cloud of fear and dissect it by going through the worst-case scenarios step-by-step, it helps us peel back the layers of fear and illusion we’ve constructed for ourselves, only to reveal nothing but thin air.
So ask yourself, again and again, “what is the worst that could happen? And then what?”
Filed under Notes on 7. May 2007 » [6]
A defining characteristic of our conditioning is a stubborn, illogical and counterproductive habit of resisting what is. The ego always wants to be against something, and the default mode of approaching the world is that of resistance, denial and avoidance.
Among spiritual seekers, this can manifest as a desire to use the spiritual path as a means of escaping or avoiding challenges they are faced with in the world of form. It can be subtle, sometimes so much so that it turns into a difficult obstacle. The mind is very clever when it comes to future-projected promises of salvation, some magical solution to all your problems that will get you to a point of arrival or “making it” sometime in the future, and the spiritual path can be seen by the ego as a means to that end.
It can be seen as a way of constructing a safe story for yourself, basically the same old “story of me” but without all the problems. And in this way, you approach the spiritual path as an alternative story line you can use to replace the old one.
And in a certain way this is true; spiritual awakening is indeed the end to all problems. But not in the way the conditioned mind thinks of it though. Becoming free of problems is not about one day finding yourself living in a world where you are free of the polarities of gain and loss, birth and death, success and failure. Things will continue to come and go, but it only becomes a problem when viewed through the filter of conditioned thinking. To quote Shakespeare again, “nothing is either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”
I will go more into this later, in-depth, but for now let me leave you with a little exercise that deals with the issue directly; a pointer that shifts you from being in a mode of resistance, which is more or less our default response to challenges in the conditioned state, and on to being able to work with whatever you are presented with in the world of form. What this entails is simply to act as if you had chosen whatever arises in the moment. It already is, and so you might as well work with it instead of resisting it.
In this way, you can face all challenges completely without turning them into problems that you then want to avoid having to deal with. When you face everything fully in this way, you will begin to see solutions and opportunities instead of problems and obstacles. And so not only will the challenges seem lighter and less serious than before, you will actually be much more able to deal with them effectively.
Practicing this is particularly useful to overcome the obstacle we talked about earlier, of wanting to use the spiritual path as a story device, and can help you shake loose from what can sometimes be a very subtle trap of conditioned thinking.
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Everyday Wonderland is a weblog on the subject of spiritual awakening, creativity, enthusiasm, inspiration, and generally everything having to do with the higher levels of human consciousness. The author is Helgi Páll Einarsson, 24 years old and currently living in Iceland. He likes books in the morning, making things, and taking long walks.