winterknight

if you're bothered by this, it's because there is still a residual mental pattern identifying with the "illusion." Illusions are illusions -- i.e. they don't really exist. You still consider yourself to have been an individual and had a history. But if, as you've said before, I is God, how can that be the case? "Even as an illusion" doesn't work... that is clinging. If an actor has played his part in a movie where he seemed to get hurt, do we believe the actor suffered? Do we wish the actor would "wake up" out of his character faster?

Oh? And what is that answer? I am vegetarian. Some mild connection with the spiritual process may be there -- vegetarian food may be more peace-inducing for the mind. Hard for me to say since I've never really compared closely...

Did the suffering affect anybody real, or just an illusion? And if it just affected it an illusion, did anyone actually suffer?

It is that easy. Like I said in the beginning, if there is peace, what does it matter? If you sense the stillness, stay with the stillness. Why all this worry then about the body or mind suffering? Stay with the stillness -- then where is the suffering? It is only when your thought strays from the stillness that you have all these issues about "dark nights of the mind" and all that.

All true, but so long as you feel not at peace, you’re identified with the doer. Even to assert “there is no such thing as surrender,” to remind yourself of this fact, will take effort. Or seem to. The point is that effortlessness is true, but it must be directly experienced as an unequivocal fact, not just something you hypnotize yourself into thinking — and until that happens without a doubt, put in what seems like effort, while keeping in mind the truth that it is not really effort.

Yes, just be. That’s the path of surrender I outlined in the post I made a couple of seconds ago. But total surrender will seem an effort until it doesn’t. Or rather you can only partially surrender as a voluntary act. When you do what you can, grace will come and lead you the rest of the way.

The problem is that you are stuck in a subtle mental concept of the “I” that you can’t seem to peel away from. That’s why you’re still suffering. There is an identification that you can’t see (which is always the case with identifications). There are, as always, only two solutions. Either you tenaciously try to locate the “I am” day and night... even if it seems a nonsensical question Or you simply totally surrender. Give up all thinking and all desire. Give up all ideas of getting to some other side. Give up all trying to change whatever mental suffering is going on. Give up thinking about that suffering. Just let go, let go, let go, let go, continuously. And if you fail at letting go for a moment, let that go too. That’s the other way.

To motivate seekers, not to create false expectations. All expectations have to be dropped if you want the truth.

So hold to this “I am” with continuity, returning to it over and over if your mind is distracted with any other thought or desire. Clarity will come eventually. Or if you are at peace as you are, stay that way. The rule applies to the one who plays the game of self-inquiry and wants to find the truth of Self... as far as the world, if the perceived falls, the world cannot be said to exist... for who is there to say it?

Well then what do you identify with? Because that's what self-inquiry is getting to... what is aware of the self-awareness? If the "I" is not self-awareness, then what is it? Something is aware of the self-awareness... what is that that is aware of being aware? I don't mean follow it in words. I mean trace the experience of that "I" who is aware of self-awareness. Who asks this question? It is the mind asking this question. It is continued identification with the mind that is causing the problem. It is not forever ethereal. It is in fact the obvious. Well that's correct. The answer is not in words. The confusion could perhaps be stated like this: Well, it's not a rule in some philosophical sense: it's a rule of experience. When there is something perceived, there is something in our experience which perceives it. Without a sense of separation, the object could not be known at all.

Well, yes, but then the question would come: how is it known when it is exhausted. And the answer is: when there is no more dissatisfaction or doubt.

The rule of the self-inquiry game is that what is observed cannot be the observer. That's why it starts when people say "I is a feeling coming from my head," and we say -- "well, but that feeling in your head, you're aware of it, right? So that means you cannot be it. Look into who is aware of that feeling in the head." In exactly the same way, I would say: who is aware that you are aware? You are aware of the self-awareness, and thus, by the rules of the self-inquiry game, the "I" cannot be that.

Ok, so you admit a "knowing of existence." Who is aware of this knowing? If you say "I am," who is aware of that?

It is not a meaningless statement. You know that you are. That is quite indisputable. The question is what the nature of this knowledge is. Why are you looking for an objective in advance? "One's existence" --> whose existence?

And who or what is this "I" that is? Where is that knowledge/feeling coming from or what is it?

Who is it that is realizing these things about concepts? Who is it that wants to know where to go from here? That inquiry is where to go.

No, that 'one' really referred to the true Self, but it also applies to the ego actually. The Self cannot be said to do, cannot be said to act... There's only one method -- self-inquiry... trace the "I." It is the false I who thinks itself to be the decision-maker; see through the false I, recognize the true I, and it is clear that the whole concept of decision-maker is false.

Could be... not sure why it's difficult now, but it's not uncommon. Though really there is nothing to fear. You are not disappearing. Only a false conception or image is disappearing. But that image does defend itself, and it can defend itself with fear. Might be worth looking deeply into that fear and metaphorizing it. Write about it, draw it out, or use whatever other medium you're comfortable with and really dig into that fear. What does it feel like? Compare it to something else. Really capture it. Imagine a scenario where the fear comes true -- express what that scenario is like. Don't stop till you feel like you've really deeply seen exactly what the fear is like. So that's the problem. These expectations from these texts. Can you drop these expectations?

You're mixing a whole lot of stuff here that is sort of illustrating my point. Reichian therapy is very much witch doctory stuff -- there is zero science supporting it, there was an FDA investigation that found it to be totally fraudulent in the 50s, and people who actually know the real thing are rightly extremely skeptical. Transpersonal psychology is a broad label that covers a whole bunch of stuff, some more legitimate than others. Shadow work is simply a term taken out of Jung that could apply to many things. Some of these things may be legit but have very much been co-opted into self-help, etc. in shallow ways. And you're lumping psychoanalysis in a long list with DBT/CBT, which again suggests you don't actually know what psychoanalysis is. Have you actually gone to a real analyst, 3x+ a week for 3+ years? I don't think so, or you wouldn't be dumping them all into the same big bucket. You're also wrong that most people don't benefit from these things. An enormous literature exists on the topic, and people are in fact helped by these therapies. It is literally one of the most studied topics in medicine, one of the most solid conclusions. Now, that doesn't mean that some people aren't helped, and it certainly doesn't mean that all therapists are equally good. Clearly not. But the solution obviously isn't to reduce qualifications. The problem is that qualifications are too loose as they are. Psychiatry and its validity is a different ball of wax entirely. Can't lump that in either. See what's going on? See how much conceptual confusion there is? The solution is not to reduce qualifications for an incredibly complex topic. Anyway, it sounds like you're very interested in New Age type therapies with extremely dubious research behind them. I'd advise you to get the real stuff instead.

Well, they are all different, but the point is there's all kinds of garbage that masquerades under the broad label of "psychotherapy" and that has filtered into modern self-help and even spiritual circles, promoted by people who don't really know what they're doing, who mix all kinds of things up into some random soup. It's like witch doctor medicine. Yeah, some of it might work sometimes. But you don't want a witch doctor treating your lymphoma. If you really want to heal people's psyches not just from a spiritual perspective but from a psychological one, I think you should consider getting in touch with the most sophisticated knowledge, and that is going to take a lot of formal education. Or else just focus on a spiritual tradition and learn it deeply, and use whatever healing techniques come from that. But just don't call it psychotherapy.

Just because they call it "shadow work" doesn't make it psychotherapy, let alone psychoanalysis, which is far more highly specialized than ordinary therapy. Analysis has very particular protocols and very richly developed ways of dealing with unconscious conflict. There is overlap between the spiritual and the psychological, but what a meditation master and a master psychotherapist are doing is not the same thing. They are both valuable, but they are not the same.

It cannot be said to ever appear. But that is impossible to understand until you find that out for yourself.

If you can get to that place of waking clarity and peace, get there and stay there. And if you seem to leave it, get back. That is all you need to do. No need to do the inquiry over and over again unless that helps to get back to that place.

What precisely is expected to happen, and who is it that expects it?

Yes, surrender is giving up desire & thought -- allowing whatever to happen, internally and externally, without resistance. Surrender puts the mind into a state of profound quiet -- that quietness is nothing other than the Self. One cannot completely surrender as a voluntary act. The surrenderer himself must be surrendered, and that happens indeed as an act of grace. One surrenders as much as possible, and then complete surrender happens as that act of grace. Complete surrender under grace is simply another name for the recognition that one is not the doer and the decision-maker, that one is the vast Nameless Silence beyond all opposites. So where is the need or the chance to resist? Thus: relaxation or surrender is our very nature. Self-inquiry leads to complete surrender in the end. Or one can, as their practice, as an alternative to inquiry, attempt to surrender as much as one possibly can. Usually though these are complementary practices. One alternates between them. They're two sides of a coin.