Let me get that straight, Dr. Adler (eagle) writes about power, Dr. Freud (pleasure) about sex, Dr. Fromm (pious) about ethics and religion, and Dr. Jung (youth) about rebirth. Mmm, you can’t make that stuff up.
Showing posts with label Freud. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Freud. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Tuesday, March 29, 2016
The Way of the Symbol
If I had to describe my spiritual path in one pithy expression, it would be, "The Way of the Symbol". I have discovered little nudges along the WAY over the years, pointing me in a direction of my choosing. When I see these signs, I just know that it is meaningful for my spiritual journey. So in a way, I would say that I have my daily conversations with GOD, yet, I would never be so arrogant to claim that what is meaningful to me has to be true for others as well.
When we live our life, reacting to external signs and voices and giving them spiritual meanings, we of course have to ask ourselves, what is truly of GOD and what is our own make-belief. I actually think that I have become pretty good in these situation-specific "yes", "no", "no", "yes" choices for the very reason that I have worked the best TEACHER there is for a while now, the WAY.
Today, I stumbled on a note that I wrote many years ago when I wanted to understand better how exactly one knows when something is "right" or "wrong". And while I still don't have a clear-cut answers that I can pass along, I have mellowed a bit on that subject; I will argue later that this distinction matters much less than you think. Please read the problem statement I faced a while back first, and then allow me to provide some updated thoughts afterwards.
True Self or Super Ego, June 7, 2009
We always talk about the True Self, the higher institution inside us which is permanently connected to the universe. How can we separate this voice from the super ego, i.e. Freud's concept of the deep-seated biases that we receive from our our parents, society and culture?
Let me give you an example: I had some receding hair line, so I got a hair transplant done a while back. It is a minor operation and actually worked out quite well. In any case, one day before the operation, I banged my foot into a door such that I could hardly walk for almost one week. But since I am very well-coordinated, these things just don't happen to me. On top of that, the injury miraculously vanished exactly at the same time when my scalp had healed. I conjectured that my True Self wanted to give me the lesson that "you are not your body" and promptly cancelled my follow-up operation.
Perhaps it was a message from a higher institution, perhaps not. The alternative is that I was just ashamed as our culture still sometimes frowns on plastic surgery. My super ego was quite well articulated by my mother. When she heard about the upcoming operation she said, "My son, these are your genes, you should accept who you are!" You see the alternative view point, I may have run into the door because my subconscience wanted to tell me that I should not go against our cultural norms. How do we know? Any ideas how we can separate the alleged True Self from our subconscious desires and fears?
Let me give you an example: I had some receding hair line, so I got a hair transplant done a while back. It is a minor operation and actually worked out quite well. In any case, one day before the operation, I banged my foot into a door such that I could hardly walk for almost one week. But since I am very well-coordinated, these things just don't happen to me. On top of that, the injury miraculously vanished exactly at the same time when my scalp had healed. I conjectured that my True Self wanted to give me the lesson that "you are not your body" and promptly cancelled my follow-up operation.
Perhaps it was a message from a higher institution, perhaps not. The alternative is that I was just ashamed as our culture still sometimes frowns on plastic surgery. My super ego was quite well articulated by my mother. When she heard about the upcoming operation she said, "My son, these are your genes, you should accept who you are!" You see the alternative view point, I may have run into the door because my subconscience wanted to tell me that I should not go against our cultural norms. How do we know? Any ideas how we can separate the alleged True Self from our subconscious desires and fears?
This was my problem statement from 2009, and as I mentioned, I canceled the follow-up operation and even stopped taking the medicine to prevent further hair loss, not because I believe that God frowns on those things, but simply because of a feeling I had during the operation. In order to transplant hair from one part to the other, the doctor has to penetrate your skin with a scalpel, and I simply disliked the feeling. "No one has the right to cut holes into me", I heard a voice say, and that was the end of this discussion. Super-ego or True Self, I didn't know who talked then, and I also didn't particularly care, all that mattered was the feeling to stop this madness and I never looked back. Frankly, when I look into the mirror these days, I kind of like what I see.
All of us are on a path that is meaningful to us; we need to find this path for ourselves and need to stick to it without losing much sleep over whether the super-ego or the True Self is talking. I am reminded of Siri's voice: we use her for digging up stuff; for finding restaurants in our neighborhood, or for reminding us of upcoming calendar events. So she is somehow there to help us. Similarly, we can use our super ego as a convenient tool to help us proceed along our spiritual path. But then, on those few occasions when the signs of the WAY and our super ego, or our id seem to clash, that is the time to dig our heels in and override what seemed obvious and natural all our life.
When Freud developed his insight of ego, super ego and the id, he perceived himself as part of an enlightenment process designed to help us discover our "healthy ego". C.G Jung felt a spiritual component was missing in Freud's theory, so he alerted us to the "Collective Unconscious" and spent his life trying to incorporate his spiritual insights into the rational thinking framework. But even he was only willing to go so far. It was him who stumbled on Synchronicity, a framework that I frequently use along my spiritual journey. But he stopped short of developing it. At one point in his career he admitted that once he stopped looking for Synchronicity, the signs of the WAY also stopped coming. Perhaps even more revealing, when someone later in his career offered to introduce him to one of the enlightened Hindu Mystics - I believe it was Sri Ramana Maharshi - he politely declined as he didn't want to go down that path. We all manufacture our story, our path, and all of us are only willing to lean so much out of the window. Life is an ongoing choice to define our "self", and there is no "right" or "wrong", there is only our way.
I look for signs of the WAY. I look for ONENESS. I look for spiritual insights and I look for love. The signs of the WAY surround me daily, and I consider it so much fun to unwrap the little blessings that GOD sends me. It is a feeling really, an insight that strikes. I may miss a few steps, but more often than not, I recognize the symbols of the WAY and react accordingly. If I felt today for some reason that a hair transplant could help me remove an inner obstacle along the WAY, I would immediately sign up!
It is arrogant to believe that I have something more worthwhile to say than Freud or Dr. Jung. Yet, it may be able to offer better directions for the select few who want to travel "The Way of Symbols" together with me. We can always appeal for GUIDANCE to a FORCE beyond our horizon, and this FORCE will cleverly use the symbols that we embrace. Observing Synchronicity in action does not prove that GOD exists. All it shows it that we are that magnetic and powerful to attract the symbols that are meaningful to us. Neither of us has any right to lecture someone else on what is "right" and what is "wrong" by GOD. "The Symbols of the WAY" are an intensely personal conversation.
God, in Neale Walsch's "Conversations with God", repeated one insight over and over: lose less sleep over the question what is "right" or "wrong", and start asking whether something is useful or a hindrance towards where you personally want to go. That's it really; first you decide what your life story is all about, and then go after it with all you got. If the collective insights of our forefathers and mothers have installed certain normative shortcuts to help us get to our goal, the better. And if we painfully have to overwrite certain biological, psychological or normative programs to advance instead, then so be it. This is our story. Let's make it a good one.
The WAY is always here to help us advance once we ask request the journey HOME. We are not intellectually or spiritually superior to anyone else, but when we travel next to HER, we end up having a lot of fun! Join us along the "The Way of Symbols"!
Sunday, March 20, 2016
Awakening to the "IT"
Emotions and thoughts and sensations, they come and go. What is really "here" is you. Everything else is a tourist. Everything else is coming and going. You are the witness of coming and going. Once you know that you are not the thing which is coming and going, peace will prevail inside your mind and heart.
(Mooji)
Freud developed the theory that our psychological identity can be divided into ego, super-ego and the "it". The ego is our perceived identity, the "I" that we feel responsible for. The super-ego describes the belief-sets of our parents, friends and society that we have internalized as ours. The "it" then is the unconscious, the instincts, the extension of the iceberg below the surface so to speak.
Freud had the noble mission to help us understand some of these external norms that we subconsciously subscribe to, as well as to enlighten us on some of our demons, drives and fears that are lurking deep in our subconscious. We spiritual travelers have the same mission and could learn a thing or two from Freud's methodology. Yet, when it comes to the notion of the ego, many of us would take the other side. Freud believed that the ego can be made sane, which is something that we spiritual travelers highly doubt. We perceive the ego as an energy field - a foreign agent so to speak just as the super-ego and the "it" - and become simply aware of it without fighting it, nor giving any power to it.
I once found this quote which describes the problem statement that we spiritual travelers see quite well:
Who am I? I am always in survival mode, living in insecurity, guarded constantly, feeling threatened. I feel a sense of lack and incompleteness (believing to be always not enough). I am defensive, living in constant reaction (taking things personally). My objective is to secretly serve myself and others who serve my own end. I am very skillful at projecting my own pain, judgment and fears unto others, to feel safe (avoiding looking at myself). I am unconscious, unaware of the depth of my spiritual nature. I secretly covet the approval and validation of others. I am the cause of pain and suffering, and I also delight in playing my cherished victim story. I am nothing without material acquisition, popularity and power in this world. I constantly seek drama in one form or another to give me a feeling of self-importance and separate sense of personal self-hood. I have been known in religion as the tempter, the thief, the devil, and Satan. I am your inner critic, your best friend (oldest buddy); I believe myself to even be you. You do not even believe that I exist, for I am in everyone’s head. I AM YOUR EGO.
(Anonymous)
When we say that the ego is nothing but a "foreign" energy field, what then remains after we have stripped ourselves of its influence? The SELF we would say, the GOD connection that can be perceived once the mind becomes still. But then, it takes awareness and spiritual maturity to connect with the SELF. Life is always here to help us find this GOD connection, within as well as outside of ourselves. In Freud's tautology of ego, super-ego and "it", all that remains outside of the SELF in the end is the "IT": the WAY, the HOLY SPIRIT, that is, an ongoing communication channel with the BEYOND that helps the observer in us realize the SELF. It is the "IT" that helps us realize who we are.
A spiritual traveler with tell you that everything that comes our WAY is designed to help put us in touch with our SELF. Yet, this decision doesn't take place in the ego realm. The ego, properly understood is simply the awareness of the "IT": the wisdom of our body; the serenity we perceive; the love we perceive when we interact with our soul siblings; the presence of the SELF when we meditate. In short, everything within and without that is designed to bring us HOME. We call this FORCE the WAY, but within Freud's vocabulary we might as well call it "IT".
Sunday, July 13, 2014
Freud and Spirituality
The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the femine soul, is "What does a woman want."
(Sigmund Freud)
I was reading a book about the unconscious by Antony Easthope and can't say much about its quality given that I have no training in psychology. I thought it was interesting and well written; one thing I would say though, I find it sad to see that Freud - just because he was so smart during his days - still obsesses our experts. Is is really that hard to see that Freud was a classic male voice of the 19th century? Try today's female perspective instead - not one that has been trained by the male-dominated psychology discipline - but one who thinks about love, happiness, social connections and what we really want with a fresh set of eyes. Well, I guess we already have it, it is called spirituality :)
My spiritual journey started a few years back when I observed that you not only send yourself subconscious messages, other people do too. Say you think of something and someone comes along and reacts to your thoughts. Once you start looking for it you will find this inter-connectedness everywhere. We are one, as they say, and you can very much experiment with that concept. It is a lot of fun really.
Think of the Tao - as we always call it - as a giant virtual reality show that mirrors your own belief system back to you. Believe in greed and competition and you will find it, in scarcity and sin, and you will find it too. Believe in abundance, peace and love and this too is something you can attract for yourself. Sure, you can try to "game" the system and attract whatever it is your heart desires the way the Law of Attraction folks recommend. But there will always remain an element of fear and restlessness because you are not taking the core spiritual issue by the horns: we are here to realize that we are not an ego.
Tao ego
Tao Divine Matrix
subconscious Holy Now Freud
In the diagram above I have tried to show the interaction of the Tao, the ego and the subconscious. Once the Way starts interacting with the ego you have a glimpse of the Matrix that mirrors back to you whatever it is you aspire. When the Way meets the subconscious you are left with the holy Now. The consciousness melts in the holy Now while the subconscious receives everything it desires.
The scientifically correct - though quite narrow - world of studying the ego in its interaction with the subconscious in isolation of the spiritual world is the environment Freud started exploring. You can study it and will certainly learn a lot of important things about yourself. Don't get lost there though. It is lonely, it is dark and love is unfortunately not experienced in this world.
By Zeitgeist
PostScript: When I deposited this note I found an interesting Freudian slip, the auto-correction of Apple changed the word feminine of the above Freud quote into famine. I am sure it says something about my own attitude about what women really want given that my type is exactly the same analytical, mind-driven male perspective that Freud represents. So what! You find the mistake, you override it and you apologize in a post-script. That is what a spiritual path is all about. You decide on a direction, you take the journey, sometimes it is uphill, while often it is downhill. Don't be afraid of your subconscious. There is incredible wisdom hidden beneath. Sure there are some dark corners but after a little cleaning and after opening a couple of windows, all you find is love there :)
(Sigmund Freud)
I was reading a book about the unconscious by Antony Easthope and can't say much about its quality given that I have no training in psychology. I thought it was interesting and well written; one thing I would say though, I find it sad to see that Freud - just because he was so smart during his days - still obsesses our experts. Is is really that hard to see that Freud was a classic male voice of the 19th century? Try today's female perspective instead - not one that has been trained by the male-dominated psychology discipline - but one who thinks about love, happiness, social connections and what we really want with a fresh set of eyes. Well, I guess we already have it, it is called spirituality :)
My spiritual journey started a few years back when I observed that you not only send yourself subconscious messages, other people do too. Say you think of something and someone comes along and reacts to your thoughts. Once you start looking for it you will find this inter-connectedness everywhere. We are one, as they say, and you can very much experiment with that concept. It is a lot of fun really.
Think of the Tao - as we always call it - as a giant virtual reality show that mirrors your own belief system back to you. Believe in greed and competition and you will find it, in scarcity and sin, and you will find it too. Believe in abundance, peace and love and this too is something you can attract for yourself. Sure, you can try to "game" the system and attract whatever it is your heart desires the way the Law of Attraction folks recommend. But there will always remain an element of fear and restlessness because you are not taking the core spiritual issue by the horns: we are here to realize that we are not an ego.
Tao ego
Tao Divine Matrix
subconscious Holy Now Freud
In the diagram above I have tried to show the interaction of the Tao, the ego and the subconscious. Once the Way starts interacting with the ego you have a glimpse of the Matrix that mirrors back to you whatever it is you aspire. When the Way meets the subconscious you are left with the holy Now. The consciousness melts in the holy Now while the subconscious receives everything it desires.
The scientifically correct - though quite narrow - world of studying the ego in its interaction with the subconscious in isolation of the spiritual world is the environment Freud started exploring. You can study it and will certainly learn a lot of important things about yourself. Don't get lost there though. It is lonely, it is dark and love is unfortunately not experienced in this world.
By Zeitgeist
PostScript: When I deposited this note I found an interesting Freudian slip, the auto-correction of Apple changed the word feminine of the above Freud quote into famine. I am sure it says something about my own attitude about what women really want given that my type is exactly the same analytical, mind-driven male perspective that Freud represents. So what! You find the mistake, you override it and you apologize in a post-script. That is what a spiritual path is all about. You decide on a direction, you take the journey, sometimes it is uphill, while often it is downhill. Don't be afraid of your subconscious. There is incredible wisdom hidden beneath. Sure there are some dark corners but after a little cleaning and after opening a couple of windows, all you find is love there :)
Friday, December 6, 2013
The Elephant in the Room
Once upon a time, there lived six blind men in a village. One day the villagers told them, "Hey, there is an elephant in the village today."
They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.
"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg.
"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.
"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.
"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.
"It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.
"It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.
They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?" They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said."
"Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.
(Hindu Wisdom)
Freud had astute observations about himself and his patients, yet he was one of the blind men that told us about the elephant. Freud discovered the ego and analyzed it for us. He was bold enough to talk about sex in an utterly sexually repressed society, yet he was not bold enough to talk about the Spirit. Erich Fromm once described one of Freud's dreams where Freud experienced love as a dried up - dead - rose. Yes, Freud analyzed life with an razor-sharp intellect; unfortunately sometimes life bleeds to death during this operation.
Freud made the subconscious a household name, but it was Jung who made us realize the elephant in the room. Not only did he help us understand the incredible wisdom and power that is hidden deep inside of us, but he was also willing - buried by lots of intellectual blah - to admit the presence of the Self. We have passed a century since this discussion started and have added plenty of insights from the New Age movement. Today we know of the elephant in the room. Yet everyone will have to see and feel all parts to really know all about it. That is exactly what a spiritual journey will do for you.
For many of us the path is a journey through all four quadrants: intellect, ego, subconscious, and Spirit. We tend to know the New Age "ego - True Self" debate pretty well, but unfortunately it is just that, a debate. You have to experience your ego dissolve in the presence of the Self for yourself. This is your spiritual mission. You have to feel it, breathe it, struggle for it, and come to appreciate it. Eventually the "I" transcends into "I Am". This may happen in front of the burning bush, may happen after falling in a deep depression, or might happen on a trip to the local grocery store. Until then, monitor the workings of the "I", see how your state of mind interacts with the environment you are operating in, and do whatever you can to also be in touch with your Spirit. For many this connection happens as they pray or meditate; some discover the Self in others, very much like the Chinese sage Lao-Tzu did when he described "The Way".
The Bhagavad Gita is an intellect driven spiritual journey. Lord Krishna tells Arjun on the battle field that you can cut through the distortions of the ego. The goal of the spiritual warrior is find out the demands of the Way - your personal dharma as the Hindus call it - and just do it, whether you like it or not. The Gita was written for Gods. If you go down that path make sure you listen to the voice in your head as much as you listen to the wisdom of your subconscious. Women and children have a better access to this Voice then men do.
Imagine an iceberg with the ego and the intellect above the water line. Spirit and the subconscious would be the giant mass below it. There are angels and demons hidden there, archetypes as well as fears and monsters. Freud's optimism that we can catapult many of these forces into our conscious mind was justified. Yet he wanted to squeeze these insights through the male intellect while the true reality is so much bigger than that. Woman and man have to merge, child and adult have to walk together, intellect and subconscious have to be in harmony, within and without have to be on the same page, and the ego has to be guided by the a Self. This is a giant task but you have a life-time to work on it and you have so many friends and angels cheering you on.
We invite you to join our journey towards wholeness. Nothing is sacred while everything is sacred; we feel and understand at the same time ; we discover every external occurrence in perfect harmony with our internal state of mind, and we see every sister as a mirror image of ourself. Discover that we are God together with us. It is a Herculean task but it is a lot of fun too. There is a unifying force linking intellect, ego, Spirit and the subconscious: love. You can love the intellect that Lord Krishna gave us, you can be proud of the "I" that has already traveled so far and just needs one more step on the homecoming journey. You can love the Spirit that prevails in everything and you can love the innocence, purity and strength of the child, woman and hero within, just as you can appreciate the incredible energy reservoir of the demon. Discover the wholeness inside. It is as plain as the elephant in the room.
Intellect
Ego Love Spirit
Subconscious
They had no idea what an elephant is. They decided, "Even though we would not be able to see it, let us go and feel it anyway." All of them went where the elephant was. Everyone of them touched the elephant.
"Hey, the elephant is a pillar," said the first man who touched his leg.
"Oh, no! it is like a rope," said the second man who touched the tail.
"Oh, no! it is like a thick branch of a tree," said the third man who touched the trunk of the elephant.
"It is like a big hand fan" said the fourth man who touched the ear of the elephant.
"It is like a huge wall," said the fifth man who touched the belly of the elephant.
"It is like a solid pipe," Said the sixth man who touched the tusk of the elephant.
They began to argue about the elephant and everyone of them insisted that he was right. It looked like they were getting agitated. A wise man was passing by and he saw this. He stopped and asked them, "What is the matter?" They said, "We cannot agree to what the elephant is like." Each one of them told what he thought the elephant was like. The wise man calmly explained to them, "All of you are right. The reason every one of you is telling it differently because each one of you touched the different part of the elephant. So, actually the elephant has all those features what you all said."
"Oh!" everyone said. There was no more fight. They felt happy that they were all right.
(Hindu Wisdom)
Freud had astute observations about himself and his patients, yet he was one of the blind men that told us about the elephant. Freud discovered the ego and analyzed it for us. He was bold enough to talk about sex in an utterly sexually repressed society, yet he was not bold enough to talk about the Spirit. Erich Fromm once described one of Freud's dreams where Freud experienced love as a dried up - dead - rose. Yes, Freud analyzed life with an razor-sharp intellect; unfortunately sometimes life bleeds to death during this operation.
Freud made the subconscious a household name, but it was Jung who made us realize the elephant in the room. Not only did he help us understand the incredible wisdom and power that is hidden deep inside of us, but he was also willing - buried by lots of intellectual blah - to admit the presence of the Self. We have passed a century since this discussion started and have added plenty of insights from the New Age movement. Today we know of the elephant in the room. Yet everyone will have to see and feel all parts to really know all about it. That is exactly what a spiritual journey will do for you.
For many of us the path is a journey through all four quadrants: intellect, ego, subconscious, and Spirit. We tend to know the New Age "ego - True Self" debate pretty well, but unfortunately it is just that, a debate. You have to experience your ego dissolve in the presence of the Self for yourself. This is your spiritual mission. You have to feel it, breathe it, struggle for it, and come to appreciate it. Eventually the "I" transcends into "I Am". This may happen in front of the burning bush, may happen after falling in a deep depression, or might happen on a trip to the local grocery store. Until then, monitor the workings of the "I", see how your state of mind interacts with the environment you are operating in, and do whatever you can to also be in touch with your Spirit. For many this connection happens as they pray or meditate; some discover the Self in others, very much like the Chinese sage Lao-Tzu did when he described "The Way".
The Bhagavad Gita is an intellect driven spiritual journey. Lord Krishna tells Arjun on the battle field that you can cut through the distortions of the ego. The goal of the spiritual warrior is find out the demands of the Way - your personal dharma as the Hindus call it - and just do it, whether you like it or not. The Gita was written for Gods. If you go down that path make sure you listen to the voice in your head as much as you listen to the wisdom of your subconscious. Women and children have a better access to this Voice then men do.
Imagine an iceberg with the ego and the intellect above the water line. Spirit and the subconscious would be the giant mass below it. There are angels and demons hidden there, archetypes as well as fears and monsters. Freud's optimism that we can catapult many of these forces into our conscious mind was justified. Yet he wanted to squeeze these insights through the male intellect while the true reality is so much bigger than that. Woman and man have to merge, child and adult have to walk together, intellect and subconscious have to be in harmony, within and without have to be on the same page, and the ego has to be guided by the a Self. This is a giant task but you have a life-time to work on it and you have so many friends and angels cheering you on.
We invite you to join our journey towards wholeness. Nothing is sacred while everything is sacred; we feel and understand at the same time ; we discover every external occurrence in perfect harmony with our internal state of mind, and we see every sister as a mirror image of ourself. Discover that we are God together with us. It is a Herculean task but it is a lot of fun too. There is a unifying force linking intellect, ego, Spirit and the subconscious: love. You can love the intellect that Lord Krishna gave us, you can be proud of the "I" that has already traveled so far and just needs one more step on the homecoming journey. You can love the Spirit that prevails in everything and you can love the innocence, purity and strength of the child, woman and hero within, just as you can appreciate the incredible energy reservoir of the demon. Discover the wholeness inside. It is as plain as the elephant in the room.
Intellect
Ego Love Spirit
Subconscious
Monday, August 5, 2013
Freud, Jung and the Tao
Freud's big achievement was to remind us that the ego is very much empowered to dig stuff out of the unconscious and grow as a person that way. Jung's big accomplishment was to recognize that you don't need to look down on the unconscious the way Freud did when he called this force the "it". To the contrary, the Unconscious could be something to look up to - it's the Force that contains our wisdom, mission statement and God connection.
Jung touched on the Tao when he stumbled on synchronicity, but he didn't explore these mystical events much further and said that when he stopped looking for them they also stopped coming. Well, that is how you can dig a little further. I claim that if you completely open up to life, a Force will come to the fore that teaches you everything you need to know about your Unconscious. More than that, your "ego" - that is the way you perceive and react to the world - is perfectly tailored to the life experiences that are coming your way. When you open up completely to this divine Force, your ego will be synchronized with the Beyond. You will find that don't have to give up anything that is dear to you. Think of yourself as a diamond in the rough getting a beautiful shine day by day. I claim even more than that, by meeting life with this new-found perspective you realize that you are Her.
Jung touched on the Tao when he stumbled on synchronicity, but he didn't explore these mystical events much further and said that when he stopped looking for them they also stopped coming. Well, that is how you can dig a little further. I claim that if you completely open up to life, a Force will come to the fore that teaches you everything you need to know about your Unconscious. More than that, your "ego" - that is the way you perceive and react to the world - is perfectly tailored to the life experiences that are coming your way. When you open up completely to this divine Force, your ego will be synchronized with the Beyond. You will find that don't have to give up anything that is dear to you. Think of yourself as a diamond in the rough getting a beautiful shine day by day. I claim even more than that, by meeting life with this new-found perspective you realize that you are Her.
Friday, July 12, 2013
Observing the Thrill to Sin
When it comes to fetishes there is no telling
what turns people on. Consider this fantasy, an eighty year old scientist
pictures himself finding the Nobel prize award in his letter box. This thought
fills him with an incredible adrenaline rush and he masturbates to the idea. You
find this result and hundreds of others in Brett Kahr's book "Who has been
sleeping in your head?" You find sexual fantasies as straight-forward ego
outlets. In the case of the retired scientist, the fantasized professional award
is the feeling of power and intellectual recognition that his ego gets excited
about as he masturbates.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. We always say the homecoming process starts with acknowledging and understanding the "I". We already know from Freud that the sex drive is an incredibly strong energy field. If you repress that in the name of spirituality, expect a few Freudian slips along the way. Perhaps we are a little wiser today than a century ago when Freud developed his theories. We probably no longer presume a "normal" when it comes to sex. Actually the survey results in Brett Kahr's book would suggest there is no normal sexual fantasy. The results were all over the place. You have the traditional versions, a woman who just wants to have good sex with someone tall, dark and handsome. You have a few respondents who report they don't have any sexual fantasies, and you have the ones that are a little out of the ordinary, like the fantasy of the European scientist. And then you also find a few that many would find pretty extreme, like rape fantasies or other subjects that are kind of out there.
Brett Kahr is a psychoanalyst and he does a good job in explaining where some of these sexual fantasies are coming from. One theme became pretty clear in his book, for people who have suffered sexual abuse or have experienced other traumas in their childhood, sexual fantasies can become a way to work through these painful events. That of course begs the question, can we actually look down on any of these so-called sexual perversions. If they are just a psychological outlet to come clean with the past, they can be welcomed as a part of the recovery process instead.
We have come a long way in tolerating all kind of sexual desires. Not to long ago homosexuality was called a perversion whereas today few would. BDSM is perhaps still considered by many as extreme, but with a little help of the romantic novels "50 Shades of Grey", even that lifestyle has become somewhat of a household name. So what if we have the desire to be bound and spanked a little. If you see your ego in action played out in a sexual fantasy you perhaps have a much better chance to be mindful of it.
We are spiritual writers, not psychoanalysts or sex researchers. So we would say that it is a fine line acknowledging and expressing the demands of the "I" without being taken on yet another ego trip in the name of sexual liberation. But then, who exactly determines whether sexual drives are consistent with our spiritual path or not. If we look down on our sexual fantasies, it's probably still the ego talking, only dressed up in holy clothes beating up our "darker" desires. Perhaps this ego bashing is actually not helpful for us at all. Perhaps the guilt is standing in the way of expressing some repressed sexual energy that simply wants to come to the surface. So back and forth goes the war inside without ever resolving anything in the name of spirituality.
We advice you to be mindful of everything you are thinking, feeling and doing; listen to all the voices in your head, and let all the emotions pop up without judgement and you will know what works for your spiritual path and what not. Listening to your fantasies, perhaps even expressing some of them physically might certainly be part of your self- discovery process.
The "hunger for more" can certainly be part of our sex life, you probably have already experienced it for yourself. Expressing this drive is a road to nowhere and the sooner you jump of this train, the better off you will be. Our spiritual community has written about this restlessness already many millennia ago. The hunger for more can be found everywhere: more money, more status, more lovers, more extreme sexual experiences; you fill in the blanks. Just as we are able to observe a divine origin in us, the ability to love, a state of innocence, the ability to be absolutely still, the experience of connectedness and peace, we can observe the opposite force as well.
In fact, there is a "thrill" of going in the opposite direction of spirituality, especially when it comes to sex. The time when you zoom into body parts not people. Getting a high from watching or expressing erotic anger, or pushing the boundaries of what others would consider normal and sane. The spiritual community reminds us what you probably already know: stillness and love can be experienced and enjoyed forever, but lust will never be satisfied, no matter what we do. Reading some of the more extreme responses in the surveys you definitely wonder whether Robert J. Stoller was onto something when he developed the idea of the " thrill to sin" in "Observing the Erotic Imagination". He claimed that in sexual perversion the excitement really comes from the notion of sinning. So the "perverse mind" gets a kick out of imagining or practicing stuff that others consider taboo.
When you think about it, it is very hard to tell what exactly is sexually arousing. Your blood is rushing through your veins, your heart is beating fast, the hormones are circulating. The chemicals in your brain go into overdrive. Could the initial kick be stress related, but you mistake the physical symptoms as sexual arousal? The initial stress is related to push the boundaries, in doing something others would find revolting. But you cannot tell what is cause and what is effect. And in the end you don't care, either, all you know us that you are turned on and that you like the thrill ride.
There actually was an interesting psychological study done to illustrate this point. An attractive reporter interviewed two groups of men in a city as well as on a small bridge in a high altitude and gave them afterwards her phone number with the interaction to call her with any follow-up questions. It turned out that a significantly larger number of men did the follow-up call of the group interviewed in high altitude. Apparently they mistook their fear of heights with sexual arousal!
So where does that leave us with? Walking the Tao is never about right or wrong, it is about studying the yin and yang that lies behind everything. Who can say what sex practices and fantasies are healthy outlets of our whole being and which ones are knocking us off our spiritual path. Each spiritual path traveler has to make that call for herself. Perhaps one signpost could be stability, the absence of restlessness. The above quoted European scientist claimed that he had masturbated to the same fantasy for decades, so chances are one day he will just grow tired of it. In the "thrill to sin" the boundaries always have to stretched otherwise the experience will get boring. It is also highly addictive because that is how the hunger for more always works. When you observe this restlessness inside there is really only one practical solution: get off the treadmill and there will be peace.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. We always say the homecoming process starts with acknowledging and understanding the "I". We already know from Freud that the sex drive is an incredibly strong energy field. If you repress that in the name of spirituality, expect a few Freudian slips along the way. Perhaps we are a little wiser today than a century ago when Freud developed his theories. We probably no longer presume a "normal" when it comes to sex. Actually the survey results in Brett Kahr's book would suggest there is no normal sexual fantasy. The results were all over the place. You have the traditional versions, a woman who just wants to have good sex with someone tall, dark and handsome. You have a few respondents who report they don't have any sexual fantasies, and you have the ones that are a little out of the ordinary, like the fantasy of the European scientist. And then you also find a few that many would find pretty extreme, like rape fantasies or other subjects that are kind of out there.
Brett Kahr is a psychoanalyst and he does a good job in explaining where some of these sexual fantasies are coming from. One theme became pretty clear in his book, for people who have suffered sexual abuse or have experienced other traumas in their childhood, sexual fantasies can become a way to work through these painful events. That of course begs the question, can we actually look down on any of these so-called sexual perversions. If they are just a psychological outlet to come clean with the past, they can be welcomed as a part of the recovery process instead.
We have come a long way in tolerating all kind of sexual desires. Not to long ago homosexuality was called a perversion whereas today few would. BDSM is perhaps still considered by many as extreme, but with a little help of the romantic novels "50 Shades of Grey", even that lifestyle has become somewhat of a household name. So what if we have the desire to be bound and spanked a little. If you see your ego in action played out in a sexual fantasy you perhaps have a much better chance to be mindful of it.
We are spiritual writers, not psychoanalysts or sex researchers. So we would say that it is a fine line acknowledging and expressing the demands of the "I" without being taken on yet another ego trip in the name of sexual liberation. But then, who exactly determines whether sexual drives are consistent with our spiritual path or not. If we look down on our sexual fantasies, it's probably still the ego talking, only dressed up in holy clothes beating up our "darker" desires. Perhaps this ego bashing is actually not helpful for us at all. Perhaps the guilt is standing in the way of expressing some repressed sexual energy that simply wants to come to the surface. So back and forth goes the war inside without ever resolving anything in the name of spirituality.
We advice you to be mindful of everything you are thinking, feeling and doing; listen to all the voices in your head, and let all the emotions pop up without judgement and you will know what works for your spiritual path and what not. Listening to your fantasies, perhaps even expressing some of them physically might certainly be part of your self- discovery process.
The "hunger for more" can certainly be part of our sex life, you probably have already experienced it for yourself. Expressing this drive is a road to nowhere and the sooner you jump of this train, the better off you will be. Our spiritual community has written about this restlessness already many millennia ago. The hunger for more can be found everywhere: more money, more status, more lovers, more extreme sexual experiences; you fill in the blanks. Just as we are able to observe a divine origin in us, the ability to love, a state of innocence, the ability to be absolutely still, the experience of connectedness and peace, we can observe the opposite force as well.
In fact, there is a "thrill" of going in the opposite direction of spirituality, especially when it comes to sex. The time when you zoom into body parts not people. Getting a high from watching or expressing erotic anger, or pushing the boundaries of what others would consider normal and sane. The spiritual community reminds us what you probably already know: stillness and love can be experienced and enjoyed forever, but lust will never be satisfied, no matter what we do. Reading some of the more extreme responses in the surveys you definitely wonder whether Robert J. Stoller was onto something when he developed the idea of the " thrill to sin" in "Observing the Erotic Imagination". He claimed that in sexual perversion the excitement really comes from the notion of sinning. So the "perverse mind" gets a kick out of imagining or practicing stuff that others consider taboo.
When you think about it, it is very hard to tell what exactly is sexually arousing. Your blood is rushing through your veins, your heart is beating fast, the hormones are circulating. The chemicals in your brain go into overdrive. Could the initial kick be stress related, but you mistake the physical symptoms as sexual arousal? The initial stress is related to push the boundaries, in doing something others would find revolting. But you cannot tell what is cause and what is effect. And in the end you don't care, either, all you know us that you are turned on and that you like the thrill ride.
There actually was an interesting psychological study done to illustrate this point. An attractive reporter interviewed two groups of men in a city as well as on a small bridge in a high altitude and gave them afterwards her phone number with the interaction to call her with any follow-up questions. It turned out that a significantly larger number of men did the follow-up call of the group interviewed in high altitude. Apparently they mistook their fear of heights with sexual arousal!
So where does that leave us with? Walking the Tao is never about right or wrong, it is about studying the yin and yang that lies behind everything. Who can say what sex practices and fantasies are healthy outlets of our whole being and which ones are knocking us off our spiritual path. Each spiritual path traveler has to make that call for herself. Perhaps one signpost could be stability, the absence of restlessness. The above quoted European scientist claimed that he had masturbated to the same fantasy for decades, so chances are one day he will just grow tired of it. In the "thrill to sin" the boundaries always have to stretched otherwise the experience will get boring. It is also highly addictive because that is how the hunger for more always works. When you observe this restlessness inside there is really only one practical solution: get off the treadmill and there will be peace.
Sunday, February 3, 2013
The Path of Darkness and Light
About a century ago Freud had an astute
observation. There is an interplay of our consciousness, the "I", the ego, with
the norms that our parents and our society impose on us, which he called the
super-ego and then there are all these drives, the instincts and animalistic
spirits, the so-called "It". He worked under the assumption that if you really
do your homework, if you really face all your animalistic passions, if you
worked out all the suppressed stuff then perhaps you could be a pretty sane
individual.
We in the spiritual community don't really disagree with any of this. Of course our society and our friends and parents as well as our religions have created a super-ego and we also certainly accept that we are driven by animalistic spirits which are biological and evolutionary in nature. Where we differ is in the insight that the " I" is an institution that can never become sane. Instead, we think of the "I" as an interplay of devil and angel, ego and True Self, darkness and light, and that more often than not the "good" in us wins the upper hand despite ourselves. But we also say that there is a path that allows us to integrate the two and that the Tao will help us in this process.
How to proceed from this insight is not so straightforward. You agree with this concept mentally, but in order to be in touch with your True Self you have to bring your entire "system" along and there is frustration growing inside of you because your "system" wants to point out to you that you are negating parts of your being by eying the elusive True Self. You want to be good and in that wanting you create a shadow that just waits for its opportunity to let off steam. In this expectation you create a conflict within yourself. The more we want to be good, the greater our struggle will be and the bigger our shadow will become in the process. Naturally, we spiritual path travelers struggle especially with the shadow personality.
We say "I must be a good person" because my True Self wants me to be. We say "I must not take advantage of someone only because I want a promotion", or "I must not lust after attractive people because I am married", etc. Freud's simple idea is still very relevant in this aspect. Try repressing your animalistic drives, try undermining what you deep down inside really appreciate and the dark empire will strike back. We humans have known this fact for millennia, this is an issue that is as ancient as the Tree of Knowledge. The question now only is what exactly can we do about it?
We think that the Tao can help you very much in the search for who you truly are. The Tao is the way of paradoxes. Hot and cold, yin and yang, dominance and submission, attack and defense. The Tao is the Way of the Middle, engaged but detached, following, but leading, last, yet first. A Tao traveler doesn't have to be afraid of shadow work - we specialize in paradoxes. There is an exciting riddle waiting for you to be solved, a Mission Impossible made possible just for you if you choose to accept. When you are done solving yours you will have literally turned the world you live in upside down. You will have redefined spiritual norms, you will have expanded the spiritual possibility frontier. Do not lose sleep on whether the spiritual community frowns on you or not, do whatever the Tao wants you to do. You will see that along the Way there will be white lies, there will be sex, there will be anger and laughter and crying.
Get in touch with your emotions, face your desires and express them creatively without undermining your spiritual path. But don't have any preconceived notions of how this path should look like let the Tao show you the way. When it is beneficial for your soul development to engage in the dark corners of your being, the Tao will ask you to do it no matter how difficult or how dirty this effort may appear to you. But the Tao will also show you the way into the light, the symbolic cleaning process, the ability to let go of your frustrations and the path to let go of your psychological baggage. There is a path through the darkness into the light and nobody but you can travel it. Just follow the signs and be prepared to walk in the daytime as well as at night.
By Christian and Su Zhen
We in the spiritual community don't really disagree with any of this. Of course our society and our friends and parents as well as our religions have created a super-ego and we also certainly accept that we are driven by animalistic spirits which are biological and evolutionary in nature. Where we differ is in the insight that the " I" is an institution that can never become sane. Instead, we think of the "I" as an interplay of devil and angel, ego and True Self, darkness and light, and that more often than not the "good" in us wins the upper hand despite ourselves. But we also say that there is a path that allows us to integrate the two and that the Tao will help us in this process.
How to proceed from this insight is not so straightforward. You agree with this concept mentally, but in order to be in touch with your True Self you have to bring your entire "system" along and there is frustration growing inside of you because your "system" wants to point out to you that you are negating parts of your being by eying the elusive True Self. You want to be good and in that wanting you create a shadow that just waits for its opportunity to let off steam. In this expectation you create a conflict within yourself. The more we want to be good, the greater our struggle will be and the bigger our shadow will become in the process. Naturally, we spiritual path travelers struggle especially with the shadow personality.
We say "I must be a good person" because my True Self wants me to be. We say "I must not take advantage of someone only because I want a promotion", or "I must not lust after attractive people because I am married", etc. Freud's simple idea is still very relevant in this aspect. Try repressing your animalistic drives, try undermining what you deep down inside really appreciate and the dark empire will strike back. We humans have known this fact for millennia, this is an issue that is as ancient as the Tree of Knowledge. The question now only is what exactly can we do about it?
We think that the Tao can help you very much in the search for who you truly are. The Tao is the way of paradoxes. Hot and cold, yin and yang, dominance and submission, attack and defense. The Tao is the Way of the Middle, engaged but detached, following, but leading, last, yet first. A Tao traveler doesn't have to be afraid of shadow work - we specialize in paradoxes. There is an exciting riddle waiting for you to be solved, a Mission Impossible made possible just for you if you choose to accept. When you are done solving yours you will have literally turned the world you live in upside down. You will have redefined spiritual norms, you will have expanded the spiritual possibility frontier. Do not lose sleep on whether the spiritual community frowns on you or not, do whatever the Tao wants you to do. You will see that along the Way there will be white lies, there will be sex, there will be anger and laughter and crying.
Get in touch with your emotions, face your desires and express them creatively without undermining your spiritual path. But don't have any preconceived notions of how this path should look like let the Tao show you the way. When it is beneficial for your soul development to engage in the dark corners of your being, the Tao will ask you to do it no matter how difficult or how dirty this effort may appear to you. But the Tao will also show you the way into the light, the symbolic cleaning process, the ability to let go of your frustrations and the path to let go of your psychological baggage. There is a path through the darkness into the light and nobody but you can travel it. Just follow the signs and be prepared to walk in the daytime as well as at night.
By Christian and Su Zhen
Sunday, December 16, 2012
The Engine
Freud became famous with one simple idea, everything about us,
what we do, what we think and what we aspire, can be explained by suppressed
sexual energy. Well, this may or may not be a good working hypothesis, but even if it is,
it only capture half of our population. Freud had "yang" in mind; the "yin"
energy needs a little extra explanation. But even for our male community, even
if you could express your sexual urges day and night - and one day, perhaps even soon
- we will be able to reach this stage with the help of a little "virtual spice",
we will still not be happy, still not be fulfilled. As a matter of fact, all we
will find out how is how empty our sex drives are unless they are an expression of
love.
We have an engine inside. It may be sexual in nature, it may be genetic, it may be based on unfinished business from a previous life. It may be a consequence of a rude experience in our childhood. We may envy someone else or we may run after a childhood fantasy. The point is, it doesn't matter what our engine is. Life has one guarantee for us. Launch the journey in whatever direction your heart desires, let your driving force be biological or psychological in nature, life will lead you to love if every step along the way you choose it. The angel and the devil on your shoulder will be equally excited about the journey. The devil will be your engine, the angel your destination.
We have an engine inside. It may be sexual in nature, it may be genetic, it may be based on unfinished business from a previous life. It may be a consequence of a rude experience in our childhood. We may envy someone else or we may run after a childhood fantasy. The point is, it doesn't matter what our engine is. Life has one guarantee for us. Launch the journey in whatever direction your heart desires, let your driving force be biological or psychological in nature, life will lead you to love if every step along the way you choose it. The angel and the devil on your shoulder will be equally excited about the journey. The devil will be your engine, the angel your destination.
Friday, September 7, 2012
On Sexual Healing
When male and female combine,
all things achieve harmony.
(Tao Te Ching)
Sex is a confusing subject within the spiritual community. There are some folks who are adamant that sex is a hindrance in the final steps towards becoming free and then there are others who argue that sex is just like all the other daily dances of the Tao - the yin and yang, the dance of male and female energy - and that it is a creative part of life. More, you can make this activity holy very much like the tantra sex folks aspire to do. My own experience on the subject would be, just do what feels right. The Tao knows where to find you when an upcoming behavioral change is in store for you. Sexual energy is very powerful as we know - you certainly don't want to repress this force ahead of schedule or expect to experience some very powerful Freudian slips.
The sexual dance of yin and yang energies are highly psychological like everything else you experience.You can learn so much about your hidden drives by sexually expressing whatever it is that feels right to you. But you have to make it real for yourself and others.
I remember Deepak Chopra once telling the story of a client who for years had some abnormal sexual desire (he never explained what exactly that desire was about) and when his patient finally got a group of willing participants together, he got afraid in the last moment, grabbed his clothes and ran away, only to find himself fantasizing about his dark desire again afterwards. While Dr. Chopra didn't really have an advice for his client one way or another, the reader of his book was left concluding, 'For heaven's sake, just get done whatever it is you feel you have to do'. That is what life and our spiritual journey is all about, distinguishing the real you from the perceived you. If others want to help you in this soul searching process, then please do your part. Sex is exactly like every other aspects of life, it is your interaction with your environment that allows you to find the real you. The Tao - life - heals, so if you still carry sexual demons around with you, get them out of your mind and let your friends help you in this soul-searching process.
In ancient Greek - the language of the new testament - gnosis means enlightenment as well as sexual union. There might be an enlightened state that is beyond sex, but until you reach that stage, life will probably encourage you to focus on the sexual enlightenment process instead. There is no more powerful way of becoming whole than participating in the dance of 'yin and yang' in my opinion. Christianity takes a very different stance. The number four is equated as the Holy Trinity plus the devil. So in the Christian tautology, you squeeze out everything that is human - and associate it with the devil -and separate it from what you perceive to be the holy part. You certainly can do this - hence the term tautology - but whether this methodology is helpful for you as a spiritual seeker is a very different question. The Asians have a much more holistic approach. The Indians worship Durga (the devine creative force ) as well as Kali (the devine destructive force) while the Taoists consider yin and yang as a symbol of wholeness. I am with the Asians on this one; move with the force of nature and not against it.
While you should express yourself freely and creatively, please also don't get lost in the sexual force since the mission statement of the Tao traveler is to become ultimately free. As my co-author Su Zhen and I argued once in a different note, the actual sexual act doesn't have to lead you astray from your spiritual path, but "mind sex" does:
http://zeitgeistinma.blogspot.com/2013/03/dont-confuse-mind-sex-with-mind-blowing.html
So if you engage in mind sex, you will have to get the demons first out in the open. The practice of sexual healing can do that, sexual repression can only intensify the dark forces in you.
all things achieve harmony.
(Tao Te Ching)
Sex is a confusing subject within the spiritual community. There are some folks who are adamant that sex is a hindrance in the final steps towards becoming free and then there are others who argue that sex is just like all the other daily dances of the Tao - the yin and yang, the dance of male and female energy - and that it is a creative part of life. More, you can make this activity holy very much like the tantra sex folks aspire to do. My own experience on the subject would be, just do what feels right. The Tao knows where to find you when an upcoming behavioral change is in store for you. Sexual energy is very powerful as we know - you certainly don't want to repress this force ahead of schedule or expect to experience some very powerful Freudian slips.
The sexual dance of yin and yang energies are highly psychological like everything else you experience.You can learn so much about your hidden drives by sexually expressing whatever it is that feels right to you. But you have to make it real for yourself and others.
I remember Deepak Chopra once telling the story of a client who for years had some abnormal sexual desire (he never explained what exactly that desire was about) and when his patient finally got a group of willing participants together, he got afraid in the last moment, grabbed his clothes and ran away, only to find himself fantasizing about his dark desire again afterwards. While Dr. Chopra didn't really have an advice for his client one way or another, the reader of his book was left concluding, 'For heaven's sake, just get done whatever it is you feel you have to do'. That is what life and our spiritual journey is all about, distinguishing the real you from the perceived you. If others want to help you in this soul searching process, then please do your part. Sex is exactly like every other aspects of life, it is your interaction with your environment that allows you to find the real you. The Tao - life - heals, so if you still carry sexual demons around with you, get them out of your mind and let your friends help you in this soul-searching process.
In ancient Greek - the language of the new testament - gnosis means enlightenment as well as sexual union. There might be an enlightened state that is beyond sex, but until you reach that stage, life will probably encourage you to focus on the sexual enlightenment process instead. There is no more powerful way of becoming whole than participating in the dance of 'yin and yang' in my opinion. Christianity takes a very different stance. The number four is equated as the Holy Trinity plus the devil. So in the Christian tautology, you squeeze out everything that is human - and associate it with the devil -and separate it from what you perceive to be the holy part. You certainly can do this - hence the term tautology - but whether this methodology is helpful for you as a spiritual seeker is a very different question. The Asians have a much more holistic approach. The Indians worship Durga (the devine creative force ) as well as Kali (the devine destructive force) while the Taoists consider yin and yang as a symbol of wholeness. I am with the Asians on this one; move with the force of nature and not against it.
While you should express yourself freely and creatively, please also don't get lost in the sexual force since the mission statement of the Tao traveler is to become ultimately free. As my co-author Su Zhen and I argued once in a different note, the actual sexual act doesn't have to lead you astray from your spiritual path, but "mind sex" does:
http://zeitgeistinma.blogspot.com/2013/03/dont-confuse-mind-sex-with-mind-blowing.html
So if you engage in mind sex, you will have to get the demons first out in the open. The practice of sexual healing can do that, sexual repression can only intensify the dark forces in you.
Wednesday, October 27, 2010
Futility
When we really ask what drives us we have to conclude that with every right-minded passion there is a dark one attached to it. In the olden days we dealt with them by declaring them sinful. We built up the psychological punishment mechanism that gave us some protection to do the right thing. But boy, when we crossed over to the dark side, we did punish ourselves. After all, we humans are powerful, whatever we believe in, we manifest into our lives. Then came Freud's insight about the superego along. I think this concept is still relevant for us spiritual path travelers today. By speculating what our True Self is all about, we create a superego in us. Actually, the superego is the modern day sin concept. If you know what your higher authority in you wants and you nevertheless give in to your temptation, you generate psychological conflict in you.
The other option you have is understanding where exactly your behaviour will lead you. I have often told the fairy tale of the fisher and his wife which is a classic story of the ego-driven desire. A fisher finds a golden fish who offers 3 boons, and his wife uses them to first get a bigger house, a palace, then a kingdom, and lastly, the fourth wish, to become God. While the first three wishes are granted, she ends up in her old fisher hut when the fourth wish is uttered. Futility! When we follow our dark passions we know where we will end up. We can see it in people who have been down this road, and we can feel it in ourselves. Yes, it is hard to stop the car and turn it around, and yes, there still will be conflict, but it is our choice, we do not need to appeal to any higher source in us and accumulate psychological baggage in the process. We reposition and channel our frustration into a more productive area. After discovering that your road leads to nowhere, no temptation can get you anymore.
The other option you have is understanding where exactly your behaviour will lead you. I have often told the fairy tale of the fisher and his wife which is a classic story of the ego-driven desire. A fisher finds a golden fish who offers 3 boons, and his wife uses them to first get a bigger house, a palace, then a kingdom, and lastly, the fourth wish, to become God. While the first three wishes are granted, she ends up in her old fisher hut when the fourth wish is uttered. Futility! When we follow our dark passions we know where we will end up. We can see it in people who have been down this road, and we can feel it in ourselves. Yes, it is hard to stop the car and turn it around, and yes, there still will be conflict, but it is our choice, we do not need to appeal to any higher source in us and accumulate psychological baggage in the process. We reposition and channel our frustration into a more productive area. After discovering that your road leads to nowhere, no temptation can get you anymore.
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Battling the Dark Forces
I borrowed the expression 'dark forces' from Anastasia (by Vladimir Megre), a book series that I would recommend to everyone who likes to read books on spirituality that are a little off the beaten track. The spiritual literature has gravitated towards the ego concept in recent years, which stands in contrast to the soul. Sometimes we also distinguish the little I from the so-called True-Self. I think these are pretty good approximations of the battle that goes on inside of us, but I think we should still refine our vocabulary a bit more to really get a handle of the force that pushes us off our spiritual path.
When I meet a soul sister in the street, I can look at her eyes, her face, or simply her 'gestalt'. In contrast, I can choose to look exclusively at her body. At work, I can view a colleague as a soul brother on a secret mission to look out for me, and I can view him as a threat to my career and can try to undermine him. Again, the choice is entirely up to me and you and, in response, the Source will shuffle Its cards very differently.
We are all taken in by these dark forces at times. You then choose fear over love as the Course in Miracles points out, but it is still the same Divine you afterwards, and it is certainly in your power to correct your misstep in the next moment and to return to the path of love and divinity. The spiritual path traveler will try to keep the dark forces at bay while being able to listen to the gentle and quite voice of love in the background. Unfortunately, the cry for sex, status, wealth and power is so loud that sometimes the call for reason is overheard. But fortunately there is the Tao that reminds us moment by moment to make the right choice. If you happen to call the dark force ego, then I would deviate a little from Freud's concept and call this holy connection, the Tao, the It. If you truly take the time and have the attention to listen to Its gentle invitation moment by moment, then the battle is over and the dark forces have run their course.
When I meet a soul sister in the street, I can look at her eyes, her face, or simply her 'gestalt'. In contrast, I can choose to look exclusively at her body. At work, I can view a colleague as a soul brother on a secret mission to look out for me, and I can view him as a threat to my career and can try to undermine him. Again, the choice is entirely up to me and you and, in response, the Source will shuffle Its cards very differently.
We are all taken in by these dark forces at times. You then choose fear over love as the Course in Miracles points out, but it is still the same Divine you afterwards, and it is certainly in your power to correct your misstep in the next moment and to return to the path of love and divinity. The spiritual path traveler will try to keep the dark forces at bay while being able to listen to the gentle and quite voice of love in the background. Unfortunately, the cry for sex, status, wealth and power is so loud that sometimes the call for reason is overheard. But fortunately there is the Tao that reminds us moment by moment to make the right choice. If you happen to call the dark force ego, then I would deviate a little from Freud's concept and call this holy connection, the Tao, the It. If you truly take the time and have the attention to listen to Its gentle invitation moment by moment, then the battle is over and the dark forces have run their course.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
True Self or Super Ego
We always talk about the True Self, the higher institution inside us which is permanently connected to the universe. How can we separate this voice from the super ego, i.e. Freud's concept of the deep-seated biases that we receive from our our parents, society and culture?
Let me give you an example: I had some receding hair line, so I got a hair transplant done a while back. It is a minor operation and actually worked out quite well. In any case, one day before the operation, I banged my foot into a door such that I could hardly walk for almost one week. I happen to be very well-coordinated, so these things just don't happen to me. On top of that, the injury miraculously vanished exactly at the same time when my scalp had healed. I conjectured that my True Self wanted to give me the lesson that "you are not your body" and promptly cancelled my follow-up operation.
Perhaps it was a message from a higher institution, perhaps not. The alternative is that I was just ashamed as our culture still sometimes frowns on plastic surgery. My super ego was quite well articulated by my mother. When she heard about the upcoming operation she said, "My son, these are your genes, you should accept who you are!" You see the alternative view point, I may have run into the door because my subconscience wanted to tell me that I should not go against our cultural norms. How do we know? Any ideas how we can separate the alleged True Self from our subconscious desires and fears?
Let me give you an example: I had some receding hair line, so I got a hair transplant done a while back. It is a minor operation and actually worked out quite well. In any case, one day before the operation, I banged my foot into a door such that I could hardly walk for almost one week. I happen to be very well-coordinated, so these things just don't happen to me. On top of that, the injury miraculously vanished exactly at the same time when my scalp had healed. I conjectured that my True Self wanted to give me the lesson that "you are not your body" and promptly cancelled my follow-up operation.
Perhaps it was a message from a higher institution, perhaps not. The alternative is that I was just ashamed as our culture still sometimes frowns on plastic surgery. My super ego was quite well articulated by my mother. When she heard about the upcoming operation she said, "My son, these are your genes, you should accept who you are!" You see the alternative view point, I may have run into the door because my subconscience wanted to tell me that I should not go against our cultural norms. How do we know? Any ideas how we can separate the alleged True Self from our subconscious desires and fears?
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