Don’t Fight It – Collapse It

Awareness is the key.

Many of us have taken on certain personality traits without being consciously aware that we have done so. Often this happens during very early childhood, usually as a result of the major influencers in our life. Did these pattern originate simply due to our social environment or did they follow on from something a little deeper?

We remain unaware of these aspects of personality because we have had no means whereby we could stand back and view these ‘aspects’ with equanimity, objectively. We may be told about them from others in our social group, but if we have not yet come to the realisation that indeed this is a part of who we present to the world we simply ignore, deny or strike out in defensiveness of our own inability to see ‘ourselves.’

It is hard to see our selves with any degree of objectivity, so lost in the drama are we that we simply are not capable of seeing these aspects of the self.

Opposing this ability is the view others have of us, they will be looking at us through their own conditioned, often highly judgemental, past.

Something that almost everyone seems to forget is that all of us, ALL, are products of our past. Did we choose where and when to be born, did we pick a personality, consciously? Are we fully responsible for the conditions we have identified with? Or are we unwilling victims to the Law of Karma?

As a result of all of the clearing I have ‘done’ over the years I have become increasingly aware that what happens to us today arises out of yesterday, like a string of pearls, each pearl on the string impacts upon the next one. For example, if at some point in our evolution we were tempted by the ‘dark side,’ easy to do in a world that seems to be built on a heavily polarised society, then we may have hurt others, we might find ourselves, as a result, living in violent world. In order to survive we become violent and the cycle continues, we pass this behaviour down to our children and so it goes.

How do we break free from this conditioned past? For many the concept doesn’t even arise, they are on their journey and that journey is deeper into the illusion, driven by a sub-conscious need for more. For those, who no longer seek answers outside of the self, for those who do not have a strong, deep, charge for ‘more’ then the focus of the journey shifts. Or at least so it appears, slowly over time.

When we come to recognise that the world that manifests for us is kept alive by the energy we put into it then we look at ways to make the journey more comfortable by manipulating the manifesting reality through all manner of techniques. When even these techniques fail to deal with old patterns that continue to arise another stage of the journey manifests. We learn, from experience, that while we continue to fight that which shows up (health issues, emotional, relationships whatever) we are, on one level, acknowledging that these issues are real. But are they, obviously if your symptoms have reached the stage where they physically manifest then yes there are ‘real.’ Yet if we begin to see that acceptance could be the key to set us free from our past we can slowly and gently move into a state of acceptance. This should start with minor issues, it is no good starting with your biggest challenges, there is too much energy associated with those and you quickly lose heart and look elsewhere. So the practice would begin by noticing feelings, physical or emotional as they show up, not focussing on specifics, just whatever shows up at any moment of the day.

Over time this practice develops to the point where is becomes a lot safer for you to look at old, embedded patterns from your past, You can see these from a different perspective because your body has learnt how to notice phenomena without giving energy to that phenomena. Effectively this take a lot of charge out of your system that has been responsible for your ‘old’ world to continue to manifest.

You cannot choose this path, either you will resonate with it or you won’t. You may begin the path with another motivation but if you keep practicing then your reality has to shift, your perceptions alter and you see how the external world is a reflection of the internal. While you are still ‘a believer’ then you accept the manifesting world as reality and lose yourself in judging and wanting to ‘do’ something about it, but what can you do? “Reality is an illusion,” as Einstein once commented, “albeit a very persistent one”. While you continue to give energy to the illusion, driven by a conscious or sub-conscious charge then you continue to support that illusion, simply by naming it as real.

Developing acceptance will slowly drain the swamp, as you no longer give energy to the manifesting world but collapse it into a more open, (non judgemental) compassionate heart.

Until this awareness arises then it just exists as a story, a pleasant dream, an idealistic world, but when the awareness takes root in you conscious mind, then, and only then, will you truly begin to understand the, as the Buddhist say, “The True Nature of Mind.”

Enjoy the journey wherever you are, whoever you believe yourself to be.