I'm never as smart as I think I am

[adamadaman]

Hello All,

Reading many of these stories are so inspiring and it is interesting to read how others are progressing along the path.  My path has not always been as clear as I has been the last year or so.  I came to Yoga out of a near state of insanity, or at least desperation.  It's been a long time since that happened so I have some trouble recalling what I felt before I began establishing myself in bliss.  It seems like most of my practice has been spent clawing myself out of some self inflicted hole, only to jump right back in once I get out.  Yes, I one of those people that has a tendency to sabotage himself, thinking himself smarter then he really is, only to be humbled a lot in the process.  Honestly, I don't really know what enlightenment is and when I think I do, the concept gets turned around on me time and time again.  The most fascinating aspect that I found is that, no matter how much knowledge I have accumulated trying to find an intellectual solution to spiritual questions, the answer was right in front of my face the whole time.  For instance, I have studied astrology for many years, digging insistently into my own birth chart, trying to find the answers that I wanted to find, and at the same time, trying to find validation for how I thought it should be.  Now, moving forward, I really don't know where I am going, and I'm liking it very much.

[karl]

[]you are at that stage of surrendering by the sounds of it?

That can come and go. Sometimes we get our belief  back and start thinking  we are holding the reins again, only to have some experience that shows just how little control we actually have. You mention the sabotage and climbing out,  although  often the climbing out comes with a sense of personal success. I have climbed out many times, only to find myself right back in the pit.

This repetition of humbling, surrender and practices eventually brings us to a place where we don't need to know where we are going but we can know when we are separated from unity. It's a kind of centring that's more intuitive than intellectual.

Thanks for sharing your inspiring story.

[lufa1212]

I concur with you, karl....i found myself back in the pit a little while back

[karl]

quote:Originally posted by lufa1212

I concur with you, karl....i found myself back in the pit a little while back

It's good, accept it because it shapes you. You are like a rough rock that gets polished in the maelstrom of the tide. If you always lie in the sun you will stay as a rough rock. Give praise for the pit and you will find that you can use it, as you use it more and more it no longer feels as abrasive or as dark and you polish without effort.

When you are in the pit, then you always wish to be free of it. It's that which causes the suffering. You wish to lie inert in the Sun, but you should be without attachment to the Sun.

Remember that all is perception. Perception of thought, perception of circumstances are all perception of objects. No object contains pleasure or goodness, all these are perceptions only.

[Shanti]

Thank you for sharing Adamadaman, and welcome to the AYP forums!
 

quote:The most fascinating aspect that I found is that, no matter how much knowledge I have accumulated trying to find an intellectual solution to spiritual questions, the answer was right in front of my face the whole time.

As they say in Kashmiri Shaivism (Shiva Sutras) "Jnanam Bandhah"... "knowledge is bondage"... inner knowing, liberation![]

 

quote:For instance, I have studied astrology for many years, digging insistently into my own birth chart, trying to find the answers that I wanted to find, and at the same time, trying to find validation for how I thought it should be.

This happens to many... that is one reason a healer (like a Reiki healer) generally cannot heal themselves (or even people they are very close to). When we work from a level of the mind (attachment to the outcome), we imagine a lot of things that it should be or could be, but when we work with others, the degree of attachment to imagination is much less, it's hard to make up stories about others we don't know... so we surrender to intuition and the healing (or reading) comes from inner silence, somewhere beyond the mind. As we get better at letting go, our ability to heal or "see" what the charts are telling us increases... the main reason for that, we let go imagination of the form and allow life (inner silence) to unfold and show us.

Wish you all the best!!!

[kami]

quote:Originally posted by adamadaman


It seems like most of my practice has been spent clawing myself out of some self inflicted hole, only to jump right back in once I get out.  Yes, I one of those people that has a tendency to sabotage himself, thinking himself smarter then he really is, only to be humbled a lot in the process.  

Hi adamadaman,

Welcome to the forums, and thank you for sharing.

Actually, the above is true for every single one of us All of the ego is a "self inflicted hole", and there are strong tendencies in us that make us want to jump right back in every time. And why ongoing practices are necessary.. This whole process, for me, has been like this. Also, we tend to over-intellectualize everything, slicing and dicing in every which way, instead of simply surrendering to the humbling that is continuously happening.. There have been many occasions where I've wished I had not read/discussed the awakening process so much; the mind has a way of trying to conform the actual experience in the moment to something read/heard of in the past.. Which is how I'm learning that this is a journey of unlearning and undoing, a journey back to innocence..

Perhaps we are just way too smart, and that is the problem

Love,
kami

[Etherfish]

I have found that i enjoy the process of clawing my way out of holes! That's what I like doing, and i feel like i
was built for that. Call me weird.

[Bodhi Tree]

Me too Etherfish. I think I was a raccoon in a past life. Fierce claws.

[Etherfish]

Put me in a situation where everything is taken care of, and I have to make no effort to live, and I hate it (except for a few days vacation). I think I may be built to work.
Is that just a personal preference, or is there something built into me that causes it?

Look at the book and youtube video by Lloyd Pye "Everything You Know is Wrong", about human origins. He shows that humans and primates are radically different and there has never been found a convincing "missing link" that bridges between the two. While mainstream scientists postulate that they only need one missing link, Pye shows that what is missing to prove we evolved from primates would have to be a series of links, like thirty, none of which have been found. If it was all evolution, what caused us to depart from "survive and reproduce",  start thinking abstract thoughts, and wonder "what's it all about?"

Zacharia Sitchin spent a lifetime translating Sumerian cuneiform texts, the oldest writings known. Mainstream science says it is all myths, but he says the ancient writings say aliens came down from the sky and altered our DNA and made us into slaves.
Maybe that accounts for why I like work, and feel it is my calling.
Now DNA experts say our DNA is only 150,000 years old and we all have a common ancestor in Africa.
That is way younger than primate DNA. So if we evolved from primates, there was a point 150,000 years ago where we radically departed from their evolution.
Our DNA has a fused spot that primates don't have, where two strands are fused into one.
Mainstream science rejects any outside intervention in our makeup, either alien or divine, but I wonder. They also reject any idea that earlier civilizations may have been more advanced than us.

We do have the built-in ability to become enlightened, which I postulate has nothing to do with DNA, and was there before any DNA alterations or evolutions.

You can't believe all of what anyone says, both in mainstream science and fringe science. That doesn't discredit what they say. It leaves it to us to put the
pieces together in a puzzle that may never be finished. It's a very interesting story developing right before our eyes....

[karl]

All action is the result is the result of uneasiness with the present position. You wish to swap one thing for another in order to remove the unease that is being experienced.

It is natural to want to understand where the unease comes from, but it will never be found because it lies in the complexity of the universe. We are tiny chunks of rationality created by the Universe like lumps in custard. Trying to make sense of the custard by using a different form of custard just isn't going to work.

It is this seeing of oneself as apart that creates this confusion. Trying to understand why as a lump in the custard we feel uneasy isn't hard to understand. The lump does not understand it is the custard and the rational sense of separation will keep the quest going for as long as the lump remains.

Even when the lump acquires the sense to see itself as a lump and part of the greater whole then this does not stop the unease, instead it simply changes one action for another. In air we fly, in water we swim. The sense of unity only creates more diverse actions.

Realising this fallibility is what is important, the rationality turned inwards learns at last the truth. It is acceptance of the unease, the fear, the pain, the loneliness. We learn the subtle trick we have been playing on ourselves. It is not the knowledge of the 'greater all' that brings peace, its the rational conclusion that there is no avoidance or separation. The  peace though  is not a defined state  or fixed, instead it moves, if we move with it then we can stay at peace while still performing all the actions that are sparked by the unease. We flow with the Universe even as a lumpy chunk of custard. We accept our lumpiness and stop getting confused by it.

I'm going to have to have some apple crumble to go with this custard now.

[Etherfish]

Karl wrote:
"All action is the result is the result of uneasiness with the present position. You wish to swap one thing for another in order to remove the unease that is being experienced."

It's a crisp fall morning and friends dressed in white all stretch, quietly talk and chuckle as they meet on a golf course, surrounded by acres of beautiful green turf and trees, the sun beginning to sparkle on leaves in intricate constantly changing patterns in the breeze.
Karl feels uneasy about the present position of the golf ball sitting on the tee...he chooses which club might be used to remove that unease and swat one thing for another...

[maheswari]

quote:All action is the result is the result of uneasiness with the present position. You wish to swap one thing for another in order to remove the unease that is being experienced

thumbs up[8D]

[karl]

quote:Originally posted by Etherfish

Karl wrote:
"All action is the result is the result of uneasiness with the present position. You wish to swap one thing for another in order to remove the unease that is being experienced."

It's a crisp fall morning and friends dressed in white all stretch, quietly talk and chuckle as they meet on a golf course, surrounded by acres of beautiful green turf and trees, the sun beginning to sparkle on leaves in intricate constantly changing patterns in the breeze.
Karl feels uneasy about the present position of the golf ball sitting on the tee...he chooses which club might be used to remove that unease and swat one thing for another...

I would have no unease about the ball on the tee, but I might wonder what I was doing on a Golf course.

[Etherfish]

quote:Originally posted by karl
I would have no unease about the ball on the tee, but I might wonder what I was doing on a Golf course.

Because there is another reason for action that is not unease: play!

[karl]

quote:Originally posted by Etherfish

quote:Originally posted by karl
I would have no unease about the ball on the tee, but I might wonder what I was doing on a Golf course.

Because there is another reason for action that is not unease: play!

Oh I see you were contradicting.

You may have misunderstood what I meant by unease. Unease is just dis-satisfaction with the current situation.  Why not just leave he ball on the Tee ? Why not just carry on gardening instead of playing Golf ? Unease is what spurs that action, by unease I don't mean discomfort. It is only the preference to swap one action for another, even one thought for another.