Below are excerpts from the Socratic Email Class. The first paragraph in each section is from the participant, followed by the Guide's response.
Okay, questions for the guide: What is the deal with insights? What are they? Where do they come from? Do they mean anything? How am I not transformed by all the exciting, exhilarating insights that drop in? Because insights are content, not process? And presence is a process of attention? R/L
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No wonder egocentric karmic conditioning/ self-hate doesn’t want you to ask questions! Ego is in big trouble now! Here’s a very poor picture for you to consider: The intelligence That Animates is ALL. It’s like a bright light illuminating everything, inside and out. Part of that All is the ability to experience separation. Ego. Perhaps it’s part of the attention/awareness “the eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me…” process. (Without that process would experience be possible?) Over time, through all the karma, conditioning, socialization stuff, we learn to look more to what attempts to be separate from the bright Light than to the Light. (Think here of all the stories along the lines of Lucifer’s fall from heaven.) As conditioning gets stronger (we see this as we watch children go from the obvious innocence of tiny person through adolescence and into adulthood), the identification with the illusion of separation is an increasing “dimmer” on the Light. But regardless of any devotion to egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate, the Light is what we are. And we get glimpses of that Light. Those glimpses are what we experience as insight. As we practice awareness, as we’re more present, we get more, and brighter, glimpses. We experience it as the lights turning up, but what’s really happening is that we’re more aware of the Light. Are those insights thrilling? Are they exciting and exhilarating? You bet! Here’s the danger: Ego is always right there, a couple of beats behind Life unfolding, ready to jump in and claim the Light for itself. So, there’s an insight and ego immediately begins the noodling process designed to first “own” it and then discard it. We don’t want to allow that. The best defense against falling for ego’s “snatch awareness and turn it into ego enhancement” is to receive everything with an “is that so?” attitude. The Light allows us to see. The seeing, the process of seeing is the point, not “what” is seen. What do you see? Gassho
Overwhelmed. Deflated. Can’t decide what one behavior I want to change. Going up against conditioning. I want to immerse myself in practice more. Believe in myself more. Believe that I deserve loving kindness. Believe that I too can make a difference. Gassho R/L
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It sounds as if the one behavior you want to change is letting the nasty voices of egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate overwhelm and deflate you. True? Let’s imagine you are climbing a very tall mountain. (Ever-popular spiritual image!) And, of course, because it’s a very tall mountain you have to climb for a long time, years maybe. You know that. You know hardly anyone ever climbs this particular mountain because it’s so tall and the climb is so arduous. But you really want to climb it. You don’t have to—you want to. But what you never realized in your passion to climb the mountain is that it would be really hard, that you’d get really tired, or that there would be negative voices in your head trying to talk you into quitting! So, there you are climbing along and you get tired. It’s so hard. And the negative voices are unrelenting. Finally, you start to feel overwhelmed. Deflated. All that passion and enthusiasm is draining away. What to do? You realize you need to pull over to the side of the trail, get out your handy dandy
mountain climber’s tea fixings, and while the water is coming to a boil, pull out your ever-faithful recording device and remind yourself what you’re doing and why. Got it? Gassho
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I want to look at my tendency to identify as a victim. I’ve seen that it’s not a desire for pity or coddling, but seems about safety. If I’m a victim, I’m not a threat, therefore, not worth attacking. Also, that part wants to be seen as brave: “Look what I’ve been through; don’t you admire my endurance?” She seems to want admiration without being seen as selfish. Admiration based on success = selfish = deserving punishment; victim = already punished. Her hoped-for response: “You poor, sweet thing; wow, you’re so brave.”
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Is that your message to her? How about you get out a recording device and make some recordings that convey that message? And perhaps begin a process map to track all the “au contraire” reactions egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate will no doubt want to contribute? Gassho
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Seeing a process where something arises in life there is an excitement to participate. An example: business opportunity or this workshop, then something “ego” comes in to stop it “you are not good at this” diverts attention “just quit” R/L
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Yes! How I wish what you’ve realized would become “common knowledge.” People commit suicide. If we, as a people, understood that committing suicide is nothing more than “the big quit,” egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate would have far less success at getting people to quit any and everything that threatens ego! Life offers a possibility. You (we) spark to it. Could be interesting. Might be fun. Sometimes, as you say, there’s excitement. BUT, and that’s a big but, if you pursue that possibility you will change. Ego does not want us to change. Ego is a program. If we start going outside the scope of the program ego will lose control. So, the campaign starts. “You can’t do that, you’re not good at that, that won’t work, this is making you unhappy/stressful (that ego campaign makes us unhappy, NOT the possibility!), if you quit you’ll have more time, you’ll be happier, life will be easier. JUST QUIT.” Eventually it wears a person down—as we are trained to be worn down—and we quit. Ego breathes a sigh of relief. We’re a little more downtrodden because, in fact, what the voices promised didn’t happen. You don’t feel better, you’re not happier. Why? Because the same voices just started to blast you with messages aboutbeing a quitter! We all know that process in small and large ways has been happening throughout our lives. For some people the messages eventually become intolerable and they can’t face one more round. We all need to get the magnitude of what we’re up against here. Once we see those voices are attempting to “have” our life, it’s not difficult to see their willingness to “take” our life. Sounds as if you’re ready to take on staying rather than quitting? Gassho
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Ego was beating me up for not sticking to the schedule. I R/L the truth which is the schedule facilitates my returning to the peace and joy of the moment. Once back in the moment, it dropped in to make the schedule more specific which I have done. R/L
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That’s a great point. When we get a beating “for something,” we’re programmed to believe that 1) the beating is about the content and 2) the source of the beating cares about the content. What you’re getting clear about is that neither of those is true. Egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate delivers beatings because it can, and beatings are the primary method of controlling people. (We can see this isn’t just an internal process; it’s acted out between people throughout society.) Those punishing voices only care about getting the attention they get when we feel bad. They care not one whit about anything except that. You keep the schedule and they just move on to the next fake crime or sin, beating you about that until you forget about the schedule and they can beat you for that! Nope. You are keeping a schedule because a schedule helps you to stay in the peace and joy of the moment. Period. No beatings allowed. Gassho
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Clarity growing of bamboozle that judgement (or anything) is this person’s problem when it’s egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate creating it and responding. As awareness grows, seeing this process everything. Practicing focus on awareness to remove more of conditioning’s veils and allow for greater Freedom and love. What an amazing practice! Gassho R/L
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That is so big, isn’t it? We have been tricked into believing we have to take the blame for and feel bad about and fix what egocentric karmic conditioning/self-hate has been doing. No wonder our efforts have failed! We were convinced we had to fix a problem that wasn’t even ours and certainly nothing we would ever be able to fix. Attention on awareness, ignoring the voices, reveals all, doesn’t it? Well done! Gassho