Thanks for your clear description of what is often discussed in muddled mumbo-jumbo. Reading your article, I am brought back to the words of philosopher/inventor Buckminster Fuller: "I sense I am a verb..."
We have a tendency to make ourselves into 'selves' or nouns - things with form rather than 'be-ings.' Being a verb, we can only be in present tense or we become a 'thing' - a memory or an imagination which are 'Kodak moments' frozen in the past or future.
So, if "awakening" is so pleasurable and rewarding, why do we avoid it so frantically? I tend to agree with Ernest Becker in that 'awakening' opens our consciousness to our mortality and unleashes a torrent of fear and terror. Much of what we do in life is designed to distract ourselves from the "awakening" of the realization that our magnificent Ego - I am - will eventually become 'I was' and fade into obscurity. He suggests our 'fall from grace' was this knowledge and our frantic efforts to create an alternative reality, an symbolic world, of 'things' - monuments, laws, art, fashion, economics, wars - all sorts of causes that will live beyond our pathetic existence. It is better to die for a 'cause' than to simply resign ourselves to the moment and fade into obscurity.
Being here now is tangled in grieving. Awakening means opening our eyes to our mortality and the mortality of all the 'things' we cling to to avoid dealing with our humble sadness and deep grief. It has often been described as "a Dark Night of the Soul." We avoid it because we naturally avoid death and to do otherwise causes tsunamis of disruptions between our mind, body, and Spirit.
"Awakening" is not some benign experience but a savage act of murder of illusions. This is dark and certainly grim and because the ego is being slain, we are left without a roadmap through the dark woods before us. There is nothing to do but surrender and allow forces greater than you to permeate. Thomas Moore states the delimma simply: "You don't choose a dark night for yourself. It is given to you. Your job is to get close to it and sift it for its gold."
Glad you liked the post. You shared Fuller's quote in a comment on a previous post, and again I'll say that I totally resonate...as I'm always pointing out, there really are no nouns...and I'm with you 100% on this: "We have a tendency to make ourselves into 'selves' or nouns - things with form rather than 'be-ings.' Being a verb, we can only be in present tense or we become a 'thing' - a memory or an imagination which are 'Kodak moments' frozen in the past or future." YES!
The rest of what you're saying I would question. Yes, grief and pain are part of life. But the uniquely human psychological fear of death (which differs from the present moment adrenalin rush biological fear when we see an approaching tiger) requires thought and imagination, and can vanish completely. I haven't read Becker's classic, but I assume he is talking about this psychological fear, which is based in thinking about the imaginary separate self, the self-image, the little "me," and our fear that "me" (or even "my consciousness") will end. That's where the terror is, in me-thoughts. Spiritual awakening wakes up from this.
When that falls away (Now, not forever after), it is an enormous RELIEF and JOY! It feels freeing, not terrifying or dark. If terror happens, it's because thought has popped back up and begun worrying about the illusory "me" again. And the body contracts, and scary feelings fill the body. That's called being in delusion.
"Dark night of the soul" seems to me to be a rather murky term that can seem to mean many things, from a major depression (which may be rooted in brain chemistry or childhood trauma) to grieving the loss of a loved one (a natural part of being alive) to the thought-sense of being lost in an alien universe or abandoned by God (which is thought-created with perhaps some neurochemistry thrown in).
I am glad you like my ideas on "awakening.' Yes, I loathe the term as well.
Yes, Terror Management Theory which emerged out of Becker's works states we are subconsciously 'terrorized' by a repressed knowledge of our demise and the futility of our frail human lives. Yes, spiritual awakening can give us some relief from this knowledge, but at a deep subconscious, primal level our bodies obediently do what they were designed to do which is to survive.
As long as we are in human form, there is part of us tasked with maintaining the conduit of Spirit into form. This is not "being in delusion" but simply a primal survival skill. Animals do it with grace and ease, we tend to do it with clumsy over-reaction.
Rabbits and other prey animals are prone to cardiac arrest under stress and quickly die if captured by a predator. It is probably not by coincidence that heart failure is the leading cause of fatalities for both men and women. There is surely a psychological factor since the phrase; "died of a broken heart" is so prevalent and probably at the core of many deaths attributed to other maladies (diseases of despair). If it all is a delusion, it certainly is a deadly one.
There is a process to the "falling away" of the terror that you mention so casually. Again, if it was that easy, why don't we all simply drop the illusion - "don't worry, be happy..."? William Bridges lists the common steps in his book "Transitions" and these correlate loosely to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's steps of the grief process.
Bridges' first stage is separation, loss - where we realize the shock of our old worldview crumbling away such as a death, divorce, disability, or career disruption. Having lived this several times, I can say it surely is terrifying and generally sets off a flurry of evasive maneuvers to avoid acceptance of reality.
The second step is where the "Dark Night" stuff happens. He calls this unassumingly the neutral zone - the period of wandering in the desert not being what once you were but not yet become what you're to be. You're literally 'in the dark' experiencing chaos and confusion. Some of us with secure attachment styles can weather this stage fairly well, but others find this a literal hell. It is a deep feminine process - a pregnancy - and attempting to hurry it can cause a miscarriage sending us back to the beginning.
The final stage is renewal - when the small voice of our subsconscious whispers to us possibilities of new beginnings and a 'rebirth.' Yes, this stage feels like a joyous relief but to get there certainly requires some mucking about. And, after the initial euphoria, life continues and new losses return to be processed again. Sure, there are a lot of physical and psycho-social variables involved, but the basic process persists.
I would be interested to hear more about your experiences of illusion simply "falling away" and emergence of "enormous relief and joy." I generally feel a peaceful broken heartedness as a human with an open heart. Perhaps I am missing something...
I was actually questioning some of your ideas on awakening, not agreeing with them all. (I resonated with your bit about verbs not nouns, not the rest). Yes, we have a survival instinct, and a biological fear will arise when faced with an immediate threat. But we also have a psychological fear, which is what's going on when we THINK about dying in the future and whether we will survive death in some way or be finished forever and all of that. That is what can fall away. I don't seem to fear death in that way. The anxiety I sometimes feel waiting for a cancer test result isn't about dying per se, but about what it will mean if I am dying in terms of what I'll need to do, what it might entail in terms of pain and caretaking needs, and a certain sorrow about leaving. Yes, there can certainly be a connection between emotions and physical health. And yes, death-like events such as losing your home, your job, your partner, your legs, etc. can bring forth terror and grief, much of which is thought-driven. We can't drop fear or worry through will-power. Awareness is what transforms. That can be a process over time, although the seeing is always NOW, or it can be sudden. Anyway, this is all feeling a bit too abstract and theoretical, and I'm going to sign off from this thread. For more on how I see death, if you're interested, my last book is called DEATH, and you can read the first chapter of it on my website: https://www.joantollifson.com/writing45.html -- 🙏
Oh, I agree with you on dying especially since like you I am in the final stages thereof.
My question of you, and it is not abstract, is if being in the Now is so pleasurable and seemingly easy why don't we all do it? That is what I am investigating and interested in. We die on lots of levels and numerous times during our lifetime. Why don't we simply choose to live more fully?
Well, I'm 75, so definitely in the last act, but as far as I know, I'm not anywhere near the final stages of dying. My health appears to be good at the moment. But anyway, I missed that your essential question was, "If being in the Now is so pleasurable and seemingly easy, why don't we all do it?" Well, first of all, what's showing up NOW is not always pleasurable (as your initial comment acknowledged). It can be excruciating pain or a concentration camp or the death of your only child. It can be hell. But when we are fully present with whatever is here, rather than resisting it or being lost in stories about it, it turns out it is bearable and something opens up, because a huge part of the suffering is psychological. However, we can't just "decide" to drop all that. All of that is a deeply engrained habit. The apparent "me" who would do that "deciding" is a powerless mirage. What can happen, perhaps through meditation or psychotherapy or just by good luck, is that there can be a growing awareness of all the resistance and thinking...and in my experience, that's what actually transforms. And the more we experience this possibility, the more available it seems to become. Maybe instead of posing it as an abstract general question, you might investigate directly in your own life what seems to keep you from this kind of open presence, or what is captivating about the stories and resistances, as it is happening. That would be my suggestion, fwiw.
....the ways we go over and over past hurts, our fears and desires about the future. Much of that is avoidable when seen clearly, and seeing through that is certainly a major part of awakening.
Dear Joan, can it be avoidable? Can I as the thought "me" avoid the ways I go over and over past hurts? Are all those appearances not as inseparable from the whole as all the other appearances and therefor impersonal? What is there to be avoided?
And if being awake is NOW and has no boundaries ...., can awakening have parts or a major part?
No words can capture the living actuality, and anything we say can be deconstructed and shown to be untrue.
So, are there parts or no parts of this or that? It can be helpful to speak of different parts (arms and legs and brains and hearts, for example), but ultimately, as the post attempts to say, there really are no separate parts to anything, and there is no such "thing" as awakening.
In one sense, nothing can ever be avoided. But in another sense, we brush our teeth to avoid tooth decay, we take aspirin to alleviate a headache, we exercise and do physical therapy or yoga to heal or prevent an injury, and in both psychotherapy and meditation, we may discover that certain forms of human misery can be left behind once we see how they are being created and sustained. In the case of psychotherapy and meditation, awareness is the transformative power, not thinking, and certainly not the "me" (which is only a mirage). In the next paragraph, I noted that such healing and transformation may not always be possible, and it is never possible "on demand" (which is a movement of thought).
In my view, psychotherapy and meditation, like white blood cells and aspirin and yoga, are ALL a movement of the whole. No little "me" is controlling any of it. And yet, to refuse medicine because we've adopted the belief that "It's all one" and "What is there to be avoided?" is a misunderstanding of these pointers that mixes different perspectives or dimensions of reality. In one moment, it is immensely liberating to hear an uncompromisingly absolute or radical pointer, and in another moment, it is helpful to hear a more practical one. There is a place for both. Both are included in what is. Both are movements of the whole.
Again, no words are ever quite right. But I hope this clarifies.
Thanks, Joan. Your writing so clear, succinct. Even putting into words what you have here is no easy accomplishment: it feels inclusive(of the many 'but...?'s) and clarifying the paradox that is Life....without trying to contain or explain the Mystery. Hope you and all are safe from smoke and fires.
Thank you Joan. It is not about an adopted belief that all is one, but about the actual fact that all there is is THIS (the whole, totality) and all else is only thought about whatever appears (the story) in and as THIS ... absolute or radical pointers, or more practical ones... or brushing one's teeth or taking an aspirin.... The source of all this is THIS, unmoving and undeniable and yet, appearing to move in every possible way. Appearing as words written by Joan, appearing as words written by Dawn...., but they have only one source and that's wonderful and funny.
Thank you Joan. Your writing is always so wise and conveying of TRUTH. It is always a pleasure to reconnect through your words with the wholeness (holiness) and all encompassing nature of what is. It is like viewing from a height, being in the harmony, the harmony that also exists in all the activity and life in the villages and countryside below, which was not recognized when I was engrossed in life at that level. It also encourages me to be open to bring an insightful awareness into action, now and here.
When I look from a higher or deeper perspective my viewpoint changes. It's not denying or obscuring but understanding with expanded awareness. So when I read your offerings I am called back and reminded of how it is all One, how every detail, though painful or pleasurable, is all part, cannot be apart, of/from the One Flow. This to me is deeply satisfying.
Thanks for your clear description of what is often discussed in muddled mumbo-jumbo. Reading your article, I am brought back to the words of philosopher/inventor Buckminster Fuller: "I sense I am a verb..."
We have a tendency to make ourselves into 'selves' or nouns - things with form rather than 'be-ings.' Being a verb, we can only be in present tense or we become a 'thing' - a memory or an imagination which are 'Kodak moments' frozen in the past or future.
So, if "awakening" is so pleasurable and rewarding, why do we avoid it so frantically? I tend to agree with Ernest Becker in that 'awakening' opens our consciousness to our mortality and unleashes a torrent of fear and terror. Much of what we do in life is designed to distract ourselves from the "awakening" of the realization that our magnificent Ego - I am - will eventually become 'I was' and fade into obscurity. He suggests our 'fall from grace' was this knowledge and our frantic efforts to create an alternative reality, an symbolic world, of 'things' - monuments, laws, art, fashion, economics, wars - all sorts of causes that will live beyond our pathetic existence. It is better to die for a 'cause' than to simply resign ourselves to the moment and fade into obscurity.
Being here now is tangled in grieving. Awakening means opening our eyes to our mortality and the mortality of all the 'things' we cling to to avoid dealing with our humble sadness and deep grief. It has often been described as "a Dark Night of the Soul." We avoid it because we naturally avoid death and to do otherwise causes tsunamis of disruptions between our mind, body, and Spirit.
"Awakening" is not some benign experience but a savage act of murder of illusions. This is dark and certainly grim and because the ego is being slain, we are left without a roadmap through the dark woods before us. There is nothing to do but surrender and allow forces greater than you to permeate. Thomas Moore states the delimma simply: "You don't choose a dark night for yourself. It is given to you. Your job is to get close to it and sift it for its gold."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Denial_of_Death
Glad you liked the post. You shared Fuller's quote in a comment on a previous post, and again I'll say that I totally resonate...as I'm always pointing out, there really are no nouns...and I'm with you 100% on this: "We have a tendency to make ourselves into 'selves' or nouns - things with form rather than 'be-ings.' Being a verb, we can only be in present tense or we become a 'thing' - a memory or an imagination which are 'Kodak moments' frozen in the past or future." YES!
The rest of what you're saying I would question. Yes, grief and pain are part of life. But the uniquely human psychological fear of death (which differs from the present moment adrenalin rush biological fear when we see an approaching tiger) requires thought and imagination, and can vanish completely. I haven't read Becker's classic, but I assume he is talking about this psychological fear, which is based in thinking about the imaginary separate self, the self-image, the little "me," and our fear that "me" (or even "my consciousness") will end. That's where the terror is, in me-thoughts. Spiritual awakening wakes up from this.
When that falls away (Now, not forever after), it is an enormous RELIEF and JOY! It feels freeing, not terrifying or dark. If terror happens, it's because thought has popped back up and begun worrying about the illusory "me" again. And the body contracts, and scary feelings fill the body. That's called being in delusion.
"Dark night of the soul" seems to me to be a rather murky term that can seem to mean many things, from a major depression (which may be rooted in brain chemistry or childhood trauma) to grieving the loss of a loved one (a natural part of being alive) to the thought-sense of being lost in an alien universe or abandoned by God (which is thought-created with perhaps some neurochemistry thrown in).
I am glad you like my ideas on "awakening.' Yes, I loathe the term as well.
Yes, Terror Management Theory which emerged out of Becker's works states we are subconsciously 'terrorized' by a repressed knowledge of our demise and the futility of our frail human lives. Yes, spiritual awakening can give us some relief from this knowledge, but at a deep subconscious, primal level our bodies obediently do what they were designed to do which is to survive.
As long as we are in human form, there is part of us tasked with maintaining the conduit of Spirit into form. This is not "being in delusion" but simply a primal survival skill. Animals do it with grace and ease, we tend to do it with clumsy over-reaction.
Rabbits and other prey animals are prone to cardiac arrest under stress and quickly die if captured by a predator. It is probably not by coincidence that heart failure is the leading cause of fatalities for both men and women. There is surely a psychological factor since the phrase; "died of a broken heart" is so prevalent and probably at the core of many deaths attributed to other maladies (diseases of despair). If it all is a delusion, it certainly is a deadly one.
There is a process to the "falling away" of the terror that you mention so casually. Again, if it was that easy, why don't we all simply drop the illusion - "don't worry, be happy..."? William Bridges lists the common steps in his book "Transitions" and these correlate loosely to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's steps of the grief process.
Bridges' first stage is separation, loss - where we realize the shock of our old worldview crumbling away such as a death, divorce, disability, or career disruption. Having lived this several times, I can say it surely is terrifying and generally sets off a flurry of evasive maneuvers to avoid acceptance of reality.
The second step is where the "Dark Night" stuff happens. He calls this unassumingly the neutral zone - the period of wandering in the desert not being what once you were but not yet become what you're to be. You're literally 'in the dark' experiencing chaos and confusion. Some of us with secure attachment styles can weather this stage fairly well, but others find this a literal hell. It is a deep feminine process - a pregnancy - and attempting to hurry it can cause a miscarriage sending us back to the beginning.
The final stage is renewal - when the small voice of our subsconscious whispers to us possibilities of new beginnings and a 'rebirth.' Yes, this stage feels like a joyous relief but to get there certainly requires some mucking about. And, after the initial euphoria, life continues and new losses return to be processed again. Sure, there are a lot of physical and psycho-social variables involved, but the basic process persists.
I would be interested to hear more about your experiences of illusion simply "falling away" and emergence of "enormous relief and joy." I generally feel a peaceful broken heartedness as a human with an open heart. Perhaps I am missing something...
https://wmbridges.com/about/what-is-transition/
I was actually questioning some of your ideas on awakening, not agreeing with them all. (I resonated with your bit about verbs not nouns, not the rest). Yes, we have a survival instinct, and a biological fear will arise when faced with an immediate threat. But we also have a psychological fear, which is what's going on when we THINK about dying in the future and whether we will survive death in some way or be finished forever and all of that. That is what can fall away. I don't seem to fear death in that way. The anxiety I sometimes feel waiting for a cancer test result isn't about dying per se, but about what it will mean if I am dying in terms of what I'll need to do, what it might entail in terms of pain and caretaking needs, and a certain sorrow about leaving. Yes, there can certainly be a connection between emotions and physical health. And yes, death-like events such as losing your home, your job, your partner, your legs, etc. can bring forth terror and grief, much of which is thought-driven. We can't drop fear or worry through will-power. Awareness is what transforms. That can be a process over time, although the seeing is always NOW, or it can be sudden. Anyway, this is all feeling a bit too abstract and theoretical, and I'm going to sign off from this thread. For more on how I see death, if you're interested, my last book is called DEATH, and you can read the first chapter of it on my website: https://www.joantollifson.com/writing45.html -- 🙏
Oh, I agree with you on dying especially since like you I am in the final stages thereof.
My question of you, and it is not abstract, is if being in the Now is so pleasurable and seemingly easy why don't we all do it? That is what I am investigating and interested in. We die on lots of levels and numerous times during our lifetime. Why don't we simply choose to live more fully?
Well, I'm 75, so definitely in the last act, but as far as I know, I'm not anywhere near the final stages of dying. My health appears to be good at the moment. But anyway, I missed that your essential question was, "If being in the Now is so pleasurable and seemingly easy, why don't we all do it?" Well, first of all, what's showing up NOW is not always pleasurable (as your initial comment acknowledged). It can be excruciating pain or a concentration camp or the death of your only child. It can be hell. But when we are fully present with whatever is here, rather than resisting it or being lost in stories about it, it turns out it is bearable and something opens up, because a huge part of the suffering is psychological. However, we can't just "decide" to drop all that. All of that is a deeply engrained habit. The apparent "me" who would do that "deciding" is a powerless mirage. What can happen, perhaps through meditation or psychotherapy or just by good luck, is that there can be a growing awareness of all the resistance and thinking...and in my experience, that's what actually transforms. And the more we experience this possibility, the more available it seems to become. Maybe instead of posing it as an abstract general question, you might investigate directly in your own life what seems to keep you from this kind of open presence, or what is captivating about the stories and resistances, as it is happening. That would be my suggestion, fwiw.
That you find my personal sharing and my specific question “abstract” tells me all I need to know. We’re done here.
....the ways we go over and over past hurts, our fears and desires about the future. Much of that is avoidable when seen clearly, and seeing through that is certainly a major part of awakening.
Dear Joan, can it be avoidable? Can I as the thought "me" avoid the ways I go over and over past hurts? Are all those appearances not as inseparable from the whole as all the other appearances and therefor impersonal? What is there to be avoided?
And if being awake is NOW and has no boundaries ...., can awakening have parts or a major part?
No words can capture the living actuality, and anything we say can be deconstructed and shown to be untrue.
So, are there parts or no parts of this or that? It can be helpful to speak of different parts (arms and legs and brains and hearts, for example), but ultimately, as the post attempts to say, there really are no separate parts to anything, and there is no such "thing" as awakening.
In one sense, nothing can ever be avoided. But in another sense, we brush our teeth to avoid tooth decay, we take aspirin to alleviate a headache, we exercise and do physical therapy or yoga to heal or prevent an injury, and in both psychotherapy and meditation, we may discover that certain forms of human misery can be left behind once we see how they are being created and sustained. In the case of psychotherapy and meditation, awareness is the transformative power, not thinking, and certainly not the "me" (which is only a mirage). In the next paragraph, I noted that such healing and transformation may not always be possible, and it is never possible "on demand" (which is a movement of thought).
In my view, psychotherapy and meditation, like white blood cells and aspirin and yoga, are ALL a movement of the whole. No little "me" is controlling any of it. And yet, to refuse medicine because we've adopted the belief that "It's all one" and "What is there to be avoided?" is a misunderstanding of these pointers that mixes different perspectives or dimensions of reality. In one moment, it is immensely liberating to hear an uncompromisingly absolute or radical pointer, and in another moment, it is helpful to hear a more practical one. There is a place for both. Both are included in what is. Both are movements of the whole.
Again, no words are ever quite right. But I hope this clarifies.
Thanks, Joan. Your writing so clear, succinct. Even putting into words what you have here is no easy accomplishment: it feels inclusive(of the many 'but...?'s) and clarifying the paradox that is Life....without trying to contain or explain the Mystery. Hope you and all are safe from smoke and fires.
Thank you Joan. It is not about an adopted belief that all is one, but about the actual fact that all there is is THIS (the whole, totality) and all else is only thought about whatever appears (the story) in and as THIS ... absolute or radical pointers, or more practical ones... or brushing one's teeth or taking an aspirin.... The source of all this is THIS, unmoving and undeniable and yet, appearing to move in every possible way. Appearing as words written by Joan, appearing as words written by Dawn...., but they have only one source and that's wonderful and funny.
Thank you.
❤️❤️❤️Thank you Joan.
Thank you Joan. Your writing is always so wise and conveying of TRUTH. It is always a pleasure to reconnect through your words with the wholeness (holiness) and all encompassing nature of what is. It is like viewing from a height, being in the harmony, the harmony that also exists in all the activity and life in the villages and countryside below, which was not recognized when I was engrossed in life at that level. It also encourages me to be open to bring an insightful awareness into action, now and here.
When I look from a higher or deeper perspective my viewpoint changes. It's not denying or obscuring but understanding with expanded awareness. So when I read your offerings I am called back and reminded of how it is all One, how every detail, though painful or pleasurable, is all part, cannot be apart, of/from the One Flow. This to me is deeply satisfying.