THE WORK
Chapter Three: Obstacles to Higher Consciousness
By James Westly
By James Westly
Table of Contents | More Practical Wisdom
Now that we have defined higher consciousness, have verified that indeed such states are available, and have begun to make attempts at Self-Remembering, we come face to face with what seems to be a myriad of internal obstacles. Even when we focus what seems to be our entire being on the task, we discover through our own self-observation that the more we attempt to Self-Remember, the more it seems to elude us. Although apparently easy at first, subsequent efforts do not produce the same result. What seemed so close, now seems to be almost impossibly distant. Be not discouraged. Remember, this is not called The Work for no reason.
It was mentioned in our discussion of Self-Remembering that to master this technique would require a restructuring of our entire existence. Self-Remembering is built on the development of the ability to control, direct, and divide attention. As we are, this vital, rarified energy that our bodies produce is incorrectly used, resulting in waste and leakage. The jungle we mentioned at the end of the last chapter does not exist outside of us, but is rather a description of our internal environment. We possess but little ability to exert any control over our inner world, and are rather more often controlled by it.
This is a difficult realization. Yet, it is essential that we come to see that this is so, and accept it as a fact of our inner existence. Little else can happen until the student comes to this conclusion about him or her self as an experience, not as a thought or an idea. Here we come up against what may seem to be a peculiar phenomenon. It is admittedly humiliating to discover that we have almost no control over ourselves. In the ordinary everyday world, the experience of humiliation is one to be avoided. In The Work, humiliation is the very shock needed to jolt us into a higher state. Thus generally it can be said that much of what we will encounter in The Work will have a valuation that is contrary to or opposite from what we find in ordinary life. Be Prepared! Remember the fairy tale Alice Through the Looking Glass, where everything is upside down and backwards and the flowers talk? It is an esoteric representation of what it means to work on oneself.
The jungle is not as awesome as it might first appear. It is composed of just a handful of psychological processes that interweave and support each other. We may have heard the idea that life is an illusion. If we release our habit of externalizing everything, we may conclude that the so called illusion lives in our inner world, and can be visualized as a veil we ourselves have imposed upon reality. Following this metaphor further, we can say that these psychological processes form the threads of the veil, and, as we begin to penetrate the processes and withdraw our validation from them, we will begin to dissolve the veil of the illusion.
Each one of the six processes we will explore represents a particular type of loss of the energy of attention. Always keep this in mind. Also remember that, although we will discuss them separately, that they occur more or less simultaneously. There will be nothing mysterious or mystical in what follows. The obstacles to be described will be familiar, nothing new will be revealed. What is new is the perspective. In fact, some may find this perspective provocative and will resist it. If the Observer has been correctly formed it can objectively observe this resistance and move through it. Remember, verify everything.
We will begin by exploring what we will simply call imagination. Imagination is one of the most creative facilities of humanity. It is the driving force behind all of our technology, all our inventions in the material world. The computer upon which this book is being typed was brought into physical manifestation by this power. Yet it is this very capacity run amuck that forms a powerful and insidious barrier to our ability to penetrate the Eternal Now. It is a major loss of the energy of attention. Much of what we validate as thinking is actually uncontrolled imagination. In this process we play movies of the mind. There are happy movies, sad movies, scary movies, erotic movies, angry movies and more. This is the first level of fascination where our attention diffuses out of us in no particular direction. We replay conversations and scenes, reshaping them to fit our fancy. We have fantasies, fantasies about things which may never come to pass, about future events, about the past, sexual fantasies, life style fantasies, the variety is unending. Careful observation will reveal that most planning sessions involve a little bit of planning and a lot of fantasy about the fulfillment of the plan.
As we replay the scenes from the past, we experience again the emotions connected to these scenes, losing more energy. We relive the traumas, the dramas, the pain, as well as the pleasures and ecstasies. Shakespeare wrote about this habit of ours in the following sonnet:
Then can I drown
an eye, unused to flow,
For precious friends hid in death's dateless night,
And weep afresh love's long since cancell'd woe,
And moan the expense of many a vanished sight:
Then can I grieve
at grievances foregone,
And heavily from woe to woe tell o'er
The sad account of fore-bemoaned moan,
Which I new pay as if not paid before.
But if the while I think on thee, dear friend,
All loses are restored, and sorrows end.
We can see clearly that Shakespeare is referring to our habit of imagining things from the past and how that habit affects us. At the end of the sonnet he makes a poetic reference to Self-Remembering. The "dear friend" is none other than the Self, showing us how we can rescue ourselves by returning to the Eternal Moment through Self-Remembering.
We enjoy this continual turning of the mind. It is like a powerful drug that softens the pain of earthly life. Thus we spend time in imagination when we wish to escape from what is going on around us. Driving home in rush hour traffic, for instance, we may tend to let our body drive the car on autopilot, giving little attention to our surroundings while we allow ourselves to "think" about the events of the day. What we call thinking, though, is more the replaying of the movie of the day. We may even take pride in
our ability to drive the car, "think" about the day and eat a snack at the same time, diffusing our energies in so doing. Remember, Divided Attention is maintaining an awareness of oneself in one's environment, not seeing how many trivial tasks can be sustained at once.
Another aspect of imagination is negative in character. We create negative fantasies, called worry. This increases the leakage of vital energy. In this mode we focus our attention inward on all sorts of possible catastrophes that might befall us. A peculiar thing about worry is that when one is in it, it is a very serious business. We take our worries seriously and, in the expression of them, require others to take them seriously also, refusing to acknowledge that we are merely indulging in some negative fantasy.
We even imbue ourselves with imaginary qualities. We imagine all sorts of things about ourselves. We imagine, for instance, that we are one person that is unified. We imagine that we're in control of our lives and that we know what we're doing. It's the old "I'm alright, you're alright" business. On the negative side, we place imaginary barriers in the way of our life aims. We imagine ourselves not being capable of attaining our desires or manifesting our dreams. We imagine insurmountable obstacles to our aims so that we may never set out to accomplish them, forcing ourselves to live in a gray place of mediocrity.
It is here also, that we paint imaginary pictures of ourselves. We have an imaginary idea of how we look, how we act, how people perceive us, how our voice sounds. Notice how most of us do not like the photographs taken of us, and when we hear a recording of our voice, we can't believe that we sound like that. How about the department store video camera. "It's not a good picture" we say, or "The recording device was inferior", "TV cameras distort us!". It is through this imaginary picture of ourselves that we paint the picture of low self-esteem, or inflated self-importance. One day we will find ourselves in the pits about who we are, the next flying high in the stratosphere.
Now, having read this far, we may say that we consciously choose to be in imagination. This may be imagination too. Check it out. Is it in our control? Does it go where we want it to? Can we shut it off when we desire to, or rather, does it run by itself? Does it come unbidden and stay long past it's welcome? Do we wish it would go away? Can we empty our minds at will, when we want to, or, is there a constant struggle to take possession of our mind and guide its intent? In meditation, if practiced, is there a struggle with the "thoughts" that have nothing to do with the meditation? When attempting to focus on a mantra, or to empty the mind, is there a tendency to "think" about the bills, or the children, or the job? Then consider, when not in meditation whether the mind does the same thing? Does it not continually associate from one thing to another mechanically, automatically?
Earlier it was mentioned that to truly master the art of Self-Remembering would require the restructuring of our entire approach to living. In the context of this discussion, this means to engage in a life-long struggle with imagination. It means to discover, through self-observation, how pervasive this habit is and how deeply it affects our lives.Through this study we will be compelled to see how it prevents us from living in the Eternal Now. We will comprehend how it keeps us from attaining mastery of our selves and our lives. We will see how it saps our strength.
To verify the power that imagination has over us is to begin to reclaim that power. To deny that this is the case is to continue to allow this habit to rule our lives, to diffuse our energies, and to keep us in a low level of awareness, in sleep. The choice, as always, is ours. "To be, or not to be", is the moment to moment question.
The next obstacle to consider is one in which the energy of attention does not diffuse out of us, as in imagination, but is rather drawn out of us either by an external object or an internal state. We place our identity into things, relationships, roles, situations and outcomes. We call this simply identification. This state is a process, and is not easily defined with words. Those who have studied it have learned about the process through observing their experience of it. We can really only speak about it through examples.
There is always an emotional element attached to this state, an element of interest or repulsion. In identification we become lost in the object. Our attention is drawn out of us in such a way that we cease to exist. We disappear into the object of our interest, into the object of identification.
We lose our sense of scale and relativity. Small things become large and we lose sight of the importance of major considerations, such as our higher purpose. I recently stood in line behind a woman at the post office.She was having an intense argument with the person behind the counter over a twenty cent mistake. She was completely lost in this small detail and was losing an enormous amount of energy, a far more important fact.
The main reason that we cannot describe identification is that, to one degree or another, we're in it most of the time. In fact, it is the degrees of identification that enable us to observe it at all. We can see where we're more identified or less identified and from these observations begin to get a flavor for what identification is as an experience. We can see how in a particular instance we've become lost, where we no longer see the forest for the trees. We may even lose sight of the trees themselves.
Eastern philosophy describes this state as one of attachment, but this definition is only partially correct. The term identification is more encompassing and more descriptive of the process. In identification we do attach our energies to external objects. We become the object. There are major examples of this. For instance, we "become" our occupations. Ask most people "what" they are and they'll answer with their job title. We also "become" our possessions. Damage my car and you've injured me. We think and say that things "belong" to us. This is one simple way in which we can see how society reinforces the process of identification.
The societal reinforcement of this process is carried out through the programmed understanding that identification is
necessary to accomplish anything. Even as one reads this, there may be a voice inside saying that nothing real can happen unless one is identified, a major illusion. In the state of identification we cannot feel right, see right, or judge correctly. We lose any possibility of objectivity, we sink into subjectivity. Our vision becomes narrowed and distorted. We rush past the obvious, oblivious to everything but the object of our identification.
Notice a person driving, who is identified with being on time, but happens to be late. The driver may be weaving in and out of traffic endangering their own life and the lives of others. The only thing in their sight is the saving of a few minutes. In the scale of one's entire life, such a duration is infinitesimal. Yet, in this state of identification, we will risk our lives to "save" those few minutes.
We indicated earlier that most of us are identified almost all the time. This means that we not only identify with possessions, occupations, and relationships, but also with each passing stimulus to which we have a reaction. The man on the street who's eye is drawn to the pretty woman is identified with the impression of the woman. He becomes lost in the sight of her. Observe spectators at an automobile accident. The level of fascination is so intense that their bodies look empty, so strong is the draw on their attention. Each stimulus, be it internal or external, that interests or repels us, that we like or dislike, activates a state of identification. We even identify with our imagination, our dreams, our mental pictures of things, people and events. Suppose a vacation is planned. After a little bit of actual planning occurs, a dream follows. Imagination starts out being connected to how the vacation will happen. Having an interest in a desired outcome is to form an identification with that outcome. This creates an expectation. Our lives are filled with expectations which comprise our identification with outcomes. Even though we can observe that much of the time our expectations are not fulfilled, we still continue to have them. Expectation is the interweaving of imagination and identification, and leads inevitably to the next major obstacle, negative emotion, the almost automatic consequence of frustrated expectations.
Remember too, that we have an imaginary picture of ourselves. Not surprisingly, we identify with it. What happens when someone or something offends that imaginary picture? How do we react when people or events show us something about ourselves that does not align itself with our imaginary picture? Being identified with the picture, we defend it. We may deny the observation. We might become angry with the person or event that presented the "insult", or we will rationalize away the discrepancy between the way the world sees us and the way we imagine ourselves to be. We will divert attention away from ourselves and, in short, do whatever it takes to retain the integrity of the imaginary picture we've painted of ourselves.
Finally, and most profoundly, we are identified with our bodies, our most sacred possessions. Many, if not most of us, think and feel that we are our bodies. Examine this thought for a moment. Exactly which part of our body is us? Or better yet, what constitutes life? This is a major issue in the medical professions. When we consider the various parts of our body, we look at them as being separate from who we are. This is my hand, this is my heart, this is my brain. We don't think of these things as being who we are. So from an experiential expressive point of view, we are not our bodies and we already know it.
All work on oneself is preparation for death. Think about it: the ability to Remember Oneself is the ability to transform shocks into consciousness. To master the art of Self-Remembering is to acquire the ability to transform the shock of death into consciousness, to die consciously. Self-Remembering requires the release of identification. To pass the physical plane is to release identification with the body. This is the teaching Christ gave the thief on the cross. He taught him to Self-Remember.
To begin work against identification is to be constantly on guard against the entry of this state into our inner world. We must mercilessly defend ourselves against this foe to consciousness, for it can easily cloak itself in the disguise of such terminology as enthusiasm, passion, spontaneity or inspiration. This is not to invalidate these emotions, but to see and experience the element of identification they contain. Strong language will bring it on or intensify it. In identification we're highly susceptible to negative emotions, which require identification to exist. Our self-awareness disappears in the face of identification. Self-Remembering becomes impossible.
Work on identification is tricky. We can easily become identified with not being identified, and remain where we are. Or, we'll decide to not care about anything, thinking that thereby we'll not be identified. This too is being identified with identification. To evolve is to live life at the highest level of integrity. To truly care deeply, doing all in one's power to promote one's life, and finally, to release it.
We may think that to release identification is to rid oneself of all those things and people that we're identified with. Yet, should we actually carry out this aim, we would find ourselves empty-handed and identified with being empty-handed. While it is true that in the process of evolvement the individual may have occasion to release involvement with things, places and people. This must be intentionally done on the basis of understanding. It will not be beneficial and may even be damaging if these things are released willy-nilly in some mad dash to rid oneself of the external sources of identification. We are better off keeping the objects of our identification and using them as tools for observation, with the aim of diminishing identification at its source.
Real work on identification begins first with verifying that identification does indeed exist. So, first work is observation. The more powerfully we observe, the less identified we will be and we can begin to withdraw our energy from the identification. We must remember, however, that we can never completely eradicate identification. We can learn to release it when it is time to let go, but even then, with major identifications, the letting go may involve some pain.
The more we work to withdraw our energy from this process, the more proficient we become at releasing, the stronger we become. We will continue to save more of the energy of attention, strengthening our ability to Self-Remember and raising our inner vibrations, bringing us closer to direct contact with the miraculous.
Since several references were made in the last section to negative emotion, it should not be too surprising to find out that the internal and external expression of negative emotion constitutes the completion of the first major triad of obstacles to higher consciousness. Remember, our focus is on the energy of attention and how we waste it or leak it.
In imagination, attention diffuses out of us. When we're identified, it is drawn out of us. In a state of negative emotion, the energy of attention may even explode out of us. So, in beginning to work on ourselves, we must right away work against the expression of negative emotions.
There is a caution, however, upon hearing this idea, our first impulse may be to work on these destructive emotions be pretending they don't exist, by "stuffing" them. Such action is dangerous and potentially harmful. All too often students of this system, eager to advance in The Work, will begin to deny their inner experience of negative emotions and will assume an artificial facade of positivity. Such dishonesty is to be avoided. Negative emotions are a direct result of our refusal to accept things as they are. Thus we become negative, for instance, when our expectations are unrealized or not met. This is an example of how imagination,identification and negative emotion interconnect. We imagine something will have a certain outcome. Having a strong desire to have it occur in a particular way, we form an identification with this outcome, creating an expectation. When this expectation is not fulfilled in the way we imagined it would be, we experience some type of negative state.
A typical example of this in ordinary life is the annual sacred ritual in Western culture called the vacation. Many of us work regular hours five days a week, fifty weeks a year, anxiously awaiting the arrival of those special two weeks when we can escape our mundane routine. We plan, dream, save our money, and make reservations. In the process we build an imaginary picture of what will take place and we identify with this picture, forming an expectation.
The day finally arrives. We get on the plane to wing our way to some tropical paradise. The plane ride is bumpy. We're seated next to someone who is irritating, has bad breath and talks too much. Upon arrival we find it is raining. We wait two hours for ground transportation and when we arrive at the hotel, they can't find our reservation or our luggage. At this point the balloon of our expectation has been completely deflated. We're angry, sad, disappointed, depressed, outraged, and completely unable to experience our life in the moment, unable to Remember Ourselves. At this point one might say that such feelings are justified, that we have a right to these negative emotions. This is true only to the extent that we wish to give our power away to circumstance. Who is in control now? We certainly are not. We lose control of ourselves when we allow circumstances to "make us negative". It is through this process that we fail to experience what is there for us. We can't see the beauty of the moment when we're lost in a negative state. We pass by the miracle standing next to us. We fail to meet that special person fate has sent walking by. We have tunnel vision and lose most of our sense of feeling. This is the effect that identification, an essential component of negative emotion, has upon us. We can see from this example how the first major triad, imagination, identification, and negative emotion, weaves its web of sleep about us.
We may think from this example that negative emotions are stimulated in us by outside causes. "He made me angry!" we say to ourselves. Yet it is possible to verify that all our negativity is internally generated, is our responsibility. We know from our observations of ourselves that at certain times a particular stimulus will create negativity within us, but at other times will not affect us. The variable is our internal state, not the stimulus. So, the key to the control of negative emotions lies within, not without.
We can begin to see that the expression of negative emotions is a type of self-indulgence, a luxury we allow ourselves. We give ourselves permission to be spendthrifts, wasters of energy. When
we connect to the realization that this luxury is very costly, we may begin to generate an unwillingness to pay the price. The price is our precious attention. An intense negative emotion can cause us to lose an entire day's energy, leaving us flat, dull, and listless for the rest of the day, unable to feel. Low level negative emotions keep us habitually flat and dull so that no matter how much energy our body produces we never have enough. Like water poured into a sieve, it leaks out as fast as we produce it.
Negative emotions happen to us very rapidly. Their process is much quicker than that of the mind or the intellect, so that in the thick of things, to remember that negative emotions are harmful is futile. The thought is neither sufficient nor powerful enough. Long study and observation is necessary in order to eventually conquer negativity. New understanding must come about with respect to negative emotions. We need to come to see for ourselves that they serve no useful purpose, that they waste energy, create unpleasant illusions, and can even destroy physical health. We must understand that they are artificial, that we've learned them through imitation, and that, at times, we glorify them. Most of all, we must understand that their existence and expression is automatic, mechanical, and not in our control.
Negativity is one of the most infectious mental diseases that plagues humanity. Notice how, when a person who is experiencing a negative state enters our space, we tend to become negative also, even if only subtly. What happens in a crowd if a fight breaks out, or some small element in the crowd turns destructive? The violence sweeps through the crowd like a rapidly spreading virus.
Negative emotions can be eradicated or destroyed since they have no real basis. We can learn to respond differently to circumstances, and not react in the old way. We can generate new attitudes within ourselves toward the people, places and events that "make us negative". We can generate a powerful internal desire to release the internal bonds we have created in response to external events, the bonds that are connections to our "buttons". No true approach to Self-Remembering can begin until work on these destructive emotions has been undertaken. No real possibilities exist for the seeker to move out of the realm of sleep until a resolve is formulated to release the connection to this form of self-indulgence.
We come now to our relationship to other people and the control they have over our lives. There exists a special form of identification connected to people in which we give them power over our internal world. We consider them internally. We identify with how people perceive us or how we imagine they perceive us. We want to be liked, accepted, appreciated, approved of, looked up to, looked down on, respected, rejected, loved, hated...the list of what we want from other people is almost endless.
In wanting things from others we give our personal power away to them, and have been conditioned to do so from the very beginning. Our parents, for the most part, were not aware of unconditional love. So they gave us love contingent on how we behaved. Thus, if our behavior was acceptable according to their standards, love or approval was given. If the behavior was unacceptable, love or approval was withheld. There was no concept of a distinction between the person and their behavior. This pattern was continued by the other authority figures in our lives, our teachers, community leaders, our various peer groups, until we were thoroughly conditioned to react to others in this fashion.
We learned to seek the love and approval of those in our community by determining what they wanted from us. Little Johnny may have wanted to be a musician, but father wanted him to be a lawyer. So he gave up music to please his father, because his father "knew what was best for him". We studied in school not to learn, but to excel. To excel meant to receive high grades, to receive high grades meant to determine what the teacher wanted and give it to him/her. So, we learned to figure out what the teacher wanted, and later on we learned to figure out what the boss wanted. Lost in all of this is what WE want.
This tendency to give our power away to others can be seen in the questions we ask ourselves. "What should I do", "What should I say", even "What should I think". The operational words are often "should" or "ought". "Should" implies some external force or authority, an imposition of rules.
There is no thought at all in this formulation for what our desires are, what our heart tells us, for our own conscience. So we become creatures of convention, doing as we "ought" or "should", having no independent thoughts or desires of our own. We turn into reactionary puppets to the "shoulds" that were programed into our memory cells, or to the "shoulds" that are given us by those around us.
Embarrassment is a common form of inner considering. When we say the "wrong" thing, dress "inappropriately", arrive late to a gathering, we feel an unpleasant emotion. Or we may have been the recipient of someone else's inner considering, say when we visited someone unexpectedly. Maybe they were not dressed appropriately, or their house was not acceptably clean. There then ensued an uncomfortable dance in which they went through a variety of justifications and explanations, all driven by an unpleasant emotion, the emanation of which created discomfort in us.
Now, from the above descriptions, we might think inner considering to be some sort of evil. In fact, it is the glue that holds together the fabric of civilization. Were we not taught to inner consider, the "thin veneer" of civilization would vanish into savage barbarism. Thus we are not here condemning this process. It is, however, essential to understand that to evolve beyond mass consciousness, to create an individuality that is uniquely its own, requires that we take back our power from those to whom it was given. This is not to say that we wish to revert to savage selfishness, but rather to connect to the desires of the finest part of our inner world. The aim here is not necessarily to change our external behavior, although some is required at times to break the bonds inner considering has on us. It is rather more a shift in the inner attitudes that drive our behavior.
The same behavior can be motivated either by a wish for community acceptance and recognition, or by the fulfillment of an inner need or desire. We can perform an act to gain the approval, respect or notice of someone else, or we can simply do it for ourselves, do it because it will promote our personal evolution. We can be polite to someone for the purpose of creating our own inner harmony, rather than out of fear of them or out of wishing to acquire their acknowledgment. This applies to all forms of human behavior.
Inner considering is a process and a state, an emotional state. We begin acquiring observations of this process by attending to our inner states. Inner considering often carries with it an unpleasant emotion and is frequently driven by an attitude of unworthiness, so that we may even ask permission of another for our very existence. Not a very pleasant experience.
The conscious alternative to inner considering is External Considering. To externally consider someone is to place oneself in their shoes and to respond to them on the basis of their perceived need, rather than react to superficial actions. Perceived needs, by the way, do not necessarily call for superficial politeness. This implies the development of the ability to reach out of ourselves and experience what is happening within another person.
This is an act of Self-Remembering, and is performed for the purpose of self-development. In the act of External Consideration we do not seek the approval of another. We exist for ourselves alone, are independent, know who we are, and are not dependent upon anyone else to define our existence.
The aspect of the jungle that is most insidious is lying. Here we speak not about intentionally false utterances, but a more profound form of lying, lying to oneself. To study the psychology of lying is to study mankind as we find it, prior to beginning conscious evolution.
We live in a society that places a high value on education and the acquisition of knowledge. Yet what we define as knowledge could be more truly called information. True knowing or comprehension of truth can only come through the acquisition of a higher state of consciousness. In our present state or vibration we have little ability to know truth. We can, however, define and study lying. To say to ourselves that we "know" is a lie. Much of what we claim as knowledge is actually theory.
We have thoeries about everything. To the extent that we believe these theories to be fact, to the extent that we act from these theories as it they were true, to this extent we lie to ourselves, even when these theories have operational validity. We have blurred the distinctions between fact and theory, creating the illusion of knowing. It is our very intelligence, our capacity to know, that forms the barrier here.
Remember, we spend the majority of our waking time in the second state of consciousness, a form of waking sleep. If one has verified this to be so, then it must follow that in sleep there is little possibility of knowing, since we exist in this state simply as highly programed reactionary mechanisms. To the degree we are unwilling to acknowledge this, exactly to that degree we are lying to ourselves about our condition. In this state we deceive ourselves. We find elaborate methods to shield ourselves from the truth. The resistance we all have to confronting the circumstances of our inner world involves the technique of lying to cover up major contradictions, to build walls around belief systems, to lull us into complacent contentment with the superficial.
It was mentioned in the first chapter that we are many "I's", that many people exist inside of us. We lie when we say "I", it presumes a certain unity, a certain power that we do not yet own. It will not be possible to own this power until we affirm its absence. Therefore, when we speak the word "I", unless we consciously acknowledge to ourselves that only a portion of our inner world is representing itself in the utterance, we deceive ourselves into believing that there is a unified representation being made.
In social interaction we inner consider those with whom we're talking. We don't wish to appear stupid or unknowing, so we act and speak as if we know the truth when in fact we don't. We do this to "look good", to sustain the imaginary picture we're identified with. To do this we find it necessary to lie to ourselves and others. When we lie we have an awareness of the lie, even if the awareness is not conscious. Knowing we are lying produces a negative sense of self-worth, a negative emotion about self. Here we see the intertwining of the first five obstacles, imagination, identification, negative emotion, inner considering and lying. In the need to "look good" we forget that it is through learning that we become greater. To learn is to acknowledge that we don't know. There is great wisdom in the confession of one's own ignorance, and great power. Hence the recognition of lying in one's inner world is an essential step in one's personal evolution. The acquisition of self-knowledge is one of the foundation stones to higher consciousness. The way to self-knowledge begins with the realization of its absence. To come to this realization is to release the lie that we already know who we are, to free ourselves from the burden of this untruth and to soar, free from illusion.
Talking is the final obstacle that knits them all the others together. Recall that, in our above example of wishing to "look good", the lie of knowing was expressed through talking. Human beings can be said to be talking animals. What do we talk about? We talk about our imagination, our identifications, we express negative emotions through speech, we verbally inner consider others and we lie, all through talking, be it inner talk or external
expression.
Inner talk. The radio talk show of the mind. The inner voices that constantly comment, categorize, criticize, complain, and condemn, depleting our precious energies in a nonstop stream of vain chatter. These voices flatten and turn grey the vividness of incoming impressions, judge the conversational utterances of others, and generally create such noise that little can penetrate.
We may call this "thinking". In reality, we are terrified of the emptiness of silence. Inner silence is confrontive. If we don't fill it up, we may be forced to see ourselves as we are, not as we imagine ourselves to be.
Notice also, how difficult it is to silence these voices. They seem to have a life of their own, a momentum. They prevent us from directly experiencing our sensory impressions, facilitate our identification with external events, and dilute or eliminate learning possibilities. They make excuses for our mistakes (inhibit the learning process), and deflect compliments (positive observations from others) in order to protect the imaginary picture we have of ourselves. They express negative emotions about ourselves and others. They even call us names, ridicule us, or conversely, vainly twist perceptions to support an over-inflated self-image.
Much the same observations can be made in connection with unnecessary external talk. We enjoy talking. Even those of us who are shy or introverted like talking when we do it. It somehow makes us feel "real". In conversation, we only listen selectively. We listen for the opportunity to talk, for something we can associate onto, for something to argue about, for the opportunity to show off. We talk to support our imaginary picture of who we are, to promote ourselves, to attract attention, to fill space and time. In the presence of other people we feel uncomfortable unless a conversation is underway, and left out if we're not participating in one. Sitting in silence with a group of people is unthinkable, and may even be considered to be abnormal by some.
A chief characteristic of a good deal of talking is that it has no aim. The talker does not have a conscious purpose or intention, and is rather talking aimlessly. Our words fall from our mouths automatically in response to both internal and external stimuli. We may not even be aware of what we're saying. We can observe how internal talking sometimes just overflows into external verbalization, as if it can no longer be contained.
Now, being the zealous seekers that we are, we may want to fall into total silence after realizing this. Silence as an exercise can be quite beneficial, but our concern here is more attention to intention. We do not wish to condemn talking, but rather are interested in casting light on our unconscious tendencies, to see how we are ruled by and lose energy through them. Even the most superficial observations can show us how enervating talking can be when it has no purpose, no direction. As our Observer begins to take note of this, our relationship to this process will organically begin to change.
Having read thus far we can begin to see that to master Self-Remembering is no easy matter. If this material has been taken seriously, we can now begin to see what an awesome undertaking it is to attempt the creation of consciousness. We have looked directly into the foundation of our illusions, the threads of the veil of forgetting. Remember, when the material of Self-Remembering was given, it was indicated that to sustain a state of Self-Remembering would require the restructuring of one's entire life. A large payment is necessary for the attainment of something as precious as Awakening. Walt Whitman alludes to this in his poem Beginners...
Beginners are those who seek to Awaken. The necessities of life are provided for them. Being essential to the evolvement of the earth, they are dear, being disruptive to the established order, they are dreadful. They accustom themselves to the pain of Awakening, understand the right use of adversity, and are child like, yet possess the wisdom of age. People respond positively to them, but don't comprehend their aims. In every era they are driven by their fate to Awaken. Every era chooses to value things other than Awakening. The price paid for Awakening is always the same.
The payment is not monetary or mystical, it is simply the release of imagination, identification, negative emotion, inner considering, lying, and unnecessary talking, ways of relating to our inner world we have been deeply conditioned into. These are favorite activities in which we have invested a lifetime, now to discover that, if we wish to Awaken, are no longer of service to us. The choice is ours. If we choose to remain where we are there is no need to work against them. There is no right and wrong here, simply choice. REMEMBER! BELIEVE NOTHING! DISBELIEVE NOTHING! VERIFY EVERYTHING!
At the end of the first chapter the first exercise was to create an Observer within. Up to this point we've not asked very much of this new entity. Now, however, we're going to give it some real work.
All evercises are designed to facilitate Self-Remembering. In this chapter we have examined what Self-Remembering is not. It may seem that we've examined this in some detail, but actually we've just scratched the proverbial surface. These processes manifest themselves uniquely in each one of us. It is the task of the Observer to study the obstacles in great detail in order to discern precisely how they occur in our unique inner environment. The study of these obstacles will occupy the true student for a substantial part of the remainder of his or her life.
Strange as it might seem, we only can have the possibility of Self-Remembering when we realize that we are not Remembering Ourselves. The moment we proudly claim that we are in that state, we are in imagination. The tricky part about this work is that we can be in imagination about Remembering, we can be identified with attaining Remembering, we can become negative over our apparent inability to Remember, we can lie to ourselves about our ability to Remember, we can inner consider fellow students over our ability or inability to Remember, and we can talk unnecessarily about our experiences of Remembering.
This being so, we need to develop the capacity to be constantly alert to the operation of these obstacles within ourselves. This can occur with the resolution to constantly renew our efforts to strengthen the Observer and feed it the energy of attention.
All exercises must begin with the study of phenomena. Only record those observations that are clear and precise. Lay aside those that require thought or analysis. Remember that all observation is facilitated by a state of Divided Attention.
B. Stop thought. Although it may seem to be impossible, we can do this for brief moments. Observe what the exercise brings.
C. Stop validating worry, fear over possible future events. Fear is an acronym for "False Expectations Appearing Real".
D. Visualize a capsule of emptiness buried in your brain. Do this with eyes open. Intensifying the visualization, expand the capsule until it fills your entire cranium, leaving no space for imagination to occur.
B. Separate Yourself Once you have examples of your habitual identifications, begin to create something that can be separate from the identification when it occurs. When you see it coming, have a thought that instructs "separation".
C. Learn to divert your attention when identified. Consciously choosing a beautiful impression during a state of identification can break the power of the process and create a state of Self- Remembering.
D. Get the right attitude. Create an attitude that makes Self-Remembering the most important value in your life. Resolve to resist giving your power away to anything.
E. Notice how infectious identification is. See how easy it is for someone to knock you off your center, especially someone you're intimate with.
B. Begin to resist the expression of negative emotions. Be careful in this. Many take this to mean denial, or "stuffing". Start with the stronger emotions, since these are more visible and are actually easier to control. Smaller, more subtle negative emotions, are more difficult. In a state of Divided Attention, it is possible to be in the Observer while the body is in a negative state. Under this condition we can be aware of ourselves being stimulated into negativity, can acknowledge the existence of the negative emotional state and yet not allow it the momentum of its own expression.
C. Study negative emotions. To the degree we can resist our expression of negative emotions we can begin studying them, cataloging them, finding connections between the external mirror that stimulates them and what the mirror is showing us about ourselves.
D. Find the link between identification and negative emotion. Identification is a precondition for negativity. Without the one the other cannot exist.
E. Know the levels of negative emotion. There are three main levels of negative emotion:
B. Become aware of the words "should", "ought", and the phrase "supposed to" in the formulation of your inner thoughts and in your speech. These connect to the process if inner considering. Replace them with what YOU want, what YOU feel, what YOU need, with the proviso that your wants, feelings, and needs bring harm to no one. This may be difficult at first since we are accustomed to placing others first and have lost contact with who we are.
C. Play the fool: observe how the presence of others effects your external behavior. Experiment with breaking these bonds by doing something in public that would ordinarily embarrass you but is harmless to others. Walk strangely, speak in a different voice, dress different from you might be expected to dress, attract attention to yourself where you ordinarily would wish to be invisible.
D. Be spontaneous. Begin speaking what is on your mind without considering whether or not it's "appropriate".
E. Learn to do exactly what you want to do as long as it harms no one else.
B. Learn to speak only what you have verified for yourself, not what you've heard or read, or what you theorize to be true. If you feel to need to speak something you've heard or read about, qualify it as such. Give up the need to be an authority on on anything but your own experience.
C. When you catch yourself lying, stop midstream and declare the lie. This requires courage and will shock you into the Eternal Present.
D. Make efforts to cease speaking and thinking in absolutes like "always" and "never". Most Truth is relative. The truth of the moment may be the next moment's lie.
A. There is great power in silence. Hold your silence until the Truth of the moment rises up within you, then give it voice using as few words as possible. Such a way of being commands respect.
B. Let go of the need to be right, or the need to "win" an argument. One who lives in wisdom understands that every point of view is valid. This attitude eliminates the compulsion to argue.
C. Learn to truly listen, not just selectively for an opportunity to talk, but for the opportunity to learn. Each moment has the potential to be a learning experience. As our abilities to listen sharpen, we begin to hear the nuances and subtlies that lie beneath the surface. Many people who seem psychic in their perceptions are merely good listeners.
D. In conversation, pause three seconds before replying. Learn not to interrupt. This allows the speaker the opportunity to complete their thought and enables you to tune into your higher possibilities.
E. Speak only when you have a clearly defined aim. This can be something as simple as the desire to establish an emotional rapport with someone by saying "Good morning", but be consciously clear with ourself as to what your aim is.
F. Stop validating inner talk. The radio talk show of the mind does have a volume knob and can be turned down.
Practical Wisdom ©1993-2001 James Westly
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